Judge rules fake chained Ape NFTs infringed BAYC’s trademark

Just because NFTs have lost much of its mainstream appeal, doesn’t mean the token creators are done fighting tooth and nail for the last bits of past boom times. Late last week, a California judge ruled that these stupid, derivative and disruptive Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible tokens have trademark protection. Unfortunately for quite a few NFT creators out there, this decision comes long after most projects could probably have used it.

last friday, California District Judge John Walter ruled in favor of BAYC manufacturer Yuga Labs in the ongoing lawsuit against concept artist Ryder Ripps, saying the dead-eyed NFTs featuring stoned monkeys in various clothing were trademarked because they “have specific uses and values ​​that depend on the consumer.” The judge said that while Yuga Labs had never registered a copyright on its monkeys, those protections are implied by creation, and the company has done enough with its NFTs to show that it has ownership of that trademark.

last June, Yuga Labs sued Ripps in a rather embarrassing prank lawsuit who claimed the artist was “trolling” the NFT maker and “swindling” consumers, further claiming “This is not just monkey business.”

The judge also denied that there was any artistic merit in Ripps’ copycat NFTs, saying that the sale of RR/BAYC is “no more artistic than the sale of a counterfeit purse.” This may be a reference to the luxury handbag manufacturer Birkin, which won a trademark lawsuit against the makers of the “MetaBirkins” NFT collection. Walter also ruled in favor of Yuga, saying that Ripps had been cybersquatting on a BAYC site with his RR/BAYC.com.

The amount Ripps owes in compensation will be determined at a later trial. Ripps’ lawyers have claimed that the NFTs sold for around $1.6 million, and the creator himself has claimed that they sold for “over a million”. The Bored Ape maker first sued Ripps and his compatriot Jeremy Cahen last year, saying that Ripps and co. with their RR/BAYC project directly stolen from Yuga Labs own designs. Ripps claimed that he was protected under fair use and that his unchained monkeys were a satire to “protest and educate people about the Bored Ape Yacht Club and the framework of the NFTs.”

A spokesperson for Yuga Labs told Gizmodo in an email that “This is not just a win for us, it’s a win for the entire web3 industry to hold scammers and counterfeiters accountable.”

The writing may have been on the wall for Ripps and his bogus NFTs. Earlier this year Yuga Labs settled a separate lawsuit against Thomas Lehman, who coded the RR/BAYC site and smart contract for the fake monkeys. In a statement, Lehman condemned the project and said he was giving all his remaining RR/BAYC to Yuga Labs to “destroy”. Of course, this ignores how crypto diehards still claim that all content on the blockchain is “immutable“, but let’s just move on.

In an emailed statement, Ripps and Cahen’s attorney Louis Tompros said “Mr. Ripps and Mr. Cahen stand by their view that the RR/BAYC artistic project is protected by the First Amendment and that Yuga does not have valid and enforceable trademarks in the NFT- is. We expect to appeal.”

Ripps himself has not taken the news lying down. On Monday, he tweeted complaining about the judge’s decision.

Even if Ripp’s true intention was to show the excesses of NFT creators, it seems like time has already done that for BAYC. In accordance CoinGeckothe price of chained monkeys has fallen steadily from the peaks of April 2022. Although NFTs gained some traction in February and March, data from Dune Analytics shows the most popular trading sites shows NFT trading volumes are way down so far in April.