NFT RR/BAYC: legal victory for Yuga Labs

A judge found that the defendants had used the marks Bored Ape Yacht Club from Yuga Labs to sell NFT RR/BAYC without sound consent and in a “manner likely to lend itself to confusion “.

Last summer, Yuga Labs sued two people behind the RR/BAYC collectionRipps and Cahen, claiming that they violated his intellectual property rights.

RR / BAYC is an NFT collection similar to Bored Ape Yacht Club and described as a parody protected by the first amendment. The project had been initiated as a satirical response to the work of Yuga Labs, which according to Ripps, contains visuals aping the racism. An assertion formally contested by the startup.

“This dispute concerns the obvious and flagrant theft by the defendants of Yuga Labs’ trademarks,” the NFT specialist recently recalled.

On Friday, April 21, in a “summary judgment,” a U.S. court ruled in favor of Yuga Labs. The amount of the damages will be determined at a future hearing.

This is not only a win for us, it’s a win for the entire Web3 industry to hold scammers and counterfeiters accountable,” commented a Yuga Labs representative on Decrypt.

The company supported by a16z and was raising $450 million in 2022 had previously sued Thomas Lehman, another member of the RR/BAYC team.

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