Courthouse News
PASADENA, Calif. (CN) — The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said on Wednesday that a trial judge was too quick to conclude that purported protest knockoffs of the Bored Ape Yacht Club nonfungible tokens infringe the trademarks of Yuga Labs, the company that created and sold the original cartoons.
In a unanimous opinion, the three-judge panel reversed a Los Angeles federal judge who two years ago had granted Yuga Labs summary judgment on its trademark infringement and cybersquatting claims against conceptual artist Ryder Ripps and his collaborator Jeremy Cahen.
“Grappling with this nascent technology, we hold that Yuga’s NFTs are not merely monkey business and can be trademarked,” U.S. Circuit Judge Danielle Forrest, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote in the 64-page opinion. “Nonetheless, we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment for Yuga on its trademark-infringement and cybersquatting claims because it has not proven as a matter of law that defendants’ actions are likely to cause consumer confusion.”
The Bored Ape collection was one of the most successful NFTs collections and was endorsed by a slew of celebrities, including Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, Madonna and Jimmy Fallon. Nonfungible tokens shot to popularity on the back of cryptocurrencies by using a similar blockchain technology to create a unique digital file for an image that can be held as an investment or sold on secondary marketplaces.
Yuga Labs sold the entire 10,000 images of the Bored Ape Yacht Club on the first day they became available in 2021, and the NFTs have been resold for hundreds of thousands — and sometimes millions — of dollars.
The success of the collection also drew criticism, including by Ripps and Cahen, who claim that the images include racist, neo-Nazi and alt-right dog whistles.
Read more
Ninth Circuit not persuaded satirical NFTs infringe creator’s trademarks
