Yuga Labs, the company behind the leading non-fungible token (NFT) project, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), won a settlement on Monday in a trademark infringement lawsuit against Thomas Lehman, a collaborator in the RR/BAYC project headed by artist Ryder Ripps, according to court filings .   



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Yuga Labs, which has a US$4 billion valuation, brought the case against Lehman in the District Court of New York last month for his part in the RR/BAYC project involving 10,000 NFTs that share similar names and traits to BAYC. He allegedly helped create the smart contract for that collection.



RR/BAYC reportedly earned US$1.6 million in sales, of which Lehman collected 15%.



As part of the settlement, Lehman concedes Yuga Labs’ ownership of the BAYC trademark and that he infringed upon that trademark with his involvement in RR/BAYC.



The terms of the settlement bar Lehman from using any BAYC trademark, destroying any materials in his possession that contain the mark and burning any RR/BAYC NFTs that he owns. It wasn’t disclosed whether Lehman incurred any financial penalties.



The settlement looks to be a victory for Yuga Labs in an ongoing intellectual property infringement suit against the project’s creator Ripps, and Jeremy Cahen.



Ripps launched the NFT collection as part of his accusations that BAYC was full of racist or far-right imagery, a claim that Yuga Labs denies.



“People who reserved an RR/BAYC NFT understood that their NFT was being minted as a protest against and parody of BAYC, and no one was under the impression that the RR/BAYC NFTs were substitutes for BAYC NFTs or would grant them access to Yuga’s club,” Ripps said in a June 2022 interview with Artnet. “I have been creating NFT artwork for the past year that scrutinizes the purpose, meaning, and social import of NFTs.”




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