BAYC parent company Yuga Labs reaches a settlement with conceptual artist Ryder Ripps over trademark dispute

ME News update, April 9 (UTC+8): Bored Ape Yacht Club developer Yuga Labs has reached a settlement in its long-running trademark dispute with conceptual artist Ryder Ripps and his business partner Jeremy Cahen. According to court documents, the two sides have agreed on the case’s claims; settlement details have not been made public. Ripps has been formally barred from using Yuga Labs’ brand visual elements and trademarks in the future.

Yuga sued Ripps and Cahen starting in 2022, alleging that the two used the same images and ape character from the original NFT series to create a so-called satirical clone project. Ripps previously argued that his RR/BAYC project falls under “expressive appropriation art” and is protected by the First Amendment, but in 2023 a federal court ruled that clone tokens could cause confusion in the NFT marketplace, infringing Yuga’s trademark rights, and ordered the two to pay nearly $9 million. The Ninth Circuit later rejected most of Ripps’s fair use arguments, overturned the fine ruling but confirmed that NFTs are protected by trademark law. (Source: PANews)