One of the founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s copycat NFT collection RR/BAYC has filed a notice of opposition to 10 trademark applications from Yuga Labs.
The move is another bizarre twist in the ongoing intellectual property dispute between BAYC creator Yuga Labs and RR/BAYC founders Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen. .
Khan submitted February 9 Notice of Opposition to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Trademark Trial Board.Opposition status for all current trademark applications read “Pending” at the time of writing.
Yuga Labs’ trademark filing, mostly filed in late 2021, covers a range of BAYC logos, artwork and branding that may be used across digital products such as NFT-based art, trading cards and Metaverse wearables doing.
The filing also describes the potential for physical BAYC products such as clothing, jewelry, watches and keychains, and the potential for entertainment services such as games, television and music.
Yuga Labs spokesperson speaking with Bloomberg Law on Feb. 11 played Denying the possibility that Cahen’s objections would succeed, he suggested the move was another attempt to cause trouble for the company.
“The Trademark Office has given preliminary approval to Yuga Labs’ trademark application and we look forward to full approval in due course,” they said, adding:
“Jeremy Cayen’s lawsuit is another attempt to distract from the real issue at hand: the violation of Yuga’s intellectual property rights.”
In the notice, Cahen provides a long list of “reasons against” Yuga Labs’ submission. In particular, Cahen claims that the sale of BAYC NFTs gave “all rights” to the digital images to the owners, so the company “waived rights” to certain logo and artwork designs.
He also claims that Yuga Labs is not the rightful owner of the particular skull design, as it appears to have transferred the rights to the ApeCoin Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) in March 2022.
Further, Cahen argues that Yuga Labs failed to provide “a bona fide intention to lawfully use” the trademark in its application because NFTs should be registered and classified as securities under federal law. increase.
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BAYC creator Yuga Labs sued digital artists Ryder Ripps and Cahen in June for using BAYC images in their RR/BAYC collection. The company also claimed that the duo intentionally “trolled Yuga Labs and tricked consumers” into buying counterfeit NFTs of his.
The move from Cahen also comes just three days after Yuga Labs settled another lawsuit against the RR/BAYC website and smart contract developer Thomas Lehman.
As part of the settlement, Lehman essentially agreed to a permanent injunction barring it from participating in any “confusingly similar” BAYC-related projects. I kept my distance from
