Yuga Labs, creator of the Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection, has received summary judgment in a trademark infringement lawsuit against Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen.
according to Decide In short, the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Yuga Labs owns the BAYC trademark. The judgment is valid and can be executed immediately.
The judge also agreed that the creation of the RR/BAYC series was misleading and that Ripps’ use of the BAYC trademark did not constitute fair use or artistic expression. Therefore, the defendant’s behavior can be said to be deliberate and for the purpose of making huge profits.
Additionally, the court ruled that the apemarket.com and rrbayc.com domain names amounted to domain name theft. The Yuga Labs ruling found that the domains could confuse the public.
However, the court has not yet made a judgment on the amount of compensation for Yuga Labs, which will be calculated and determined during the trial.
At the same time, the NFT community believes that summary judgment sets an important legal precedent. If an NFT is subject to a copyright claim, it means that courts are treating it as a commodity rather than a security.
The court recognizes NFT as a commodity | Source: Yuga Lab
Who is Ryder Lips?
As an artist and vocal critic for the Yuga Labs and BAYC series, Ripps claims that BAYC and Yuga Labs images contain hidden references to Nazism and racist depictions. Despite the company’s denials, the claim spread in multiple places on the internet.
Together with Jeremy Cahen, Ripps launched the NFT RR/BAYC series, which is an important part of BAYC. The series uses the same visuals and marketing strategies as the creators of BAYC. But Cahen and Ripps insisted they were just trying to satirize BAYC.
Responding to the recent summary ruling, Lipps taunted Yuga Labs on Twitter, calling the company a “problematic dude.”elder brother ask Show off whether the company owns every domain name with the word “ape” on it, and postal U.S. Ninth Court of Justice logo or not.
BAYC sales decline
While Bored Apes remains one of the most popular NFT collections on the market, its popularity has waned recently. Sales for the item fell 21% to $154.49 million over the past 90 days.
BAYC Sales | Source: CryptoSlam
according to data OpenSea’s collectible reserve price has dropped 7% over the past 24 hours to 50.5 ETH (approximately $94.753).
Meanwhile, the decline in Bored Ape Yacht Club sales mirrored the broader NFT market. Key metrics for the industry such as sales, numbers and unique users are at yearly lows.
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Ming Ying
According to Beincrypto
