Yuga Labs, creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, has reached a settlement with conceptual artist Ryder Ripps and his business partner Jeremy Cahen — resolving a trademark dispute filed in July 2022 that produced two landmark federal court rulings over intellectual property protection for non-fungible tokens before the parties agreed to resolve the matter out of court.
According to A File a lawsuitRipps has been formally banned from future use of Yuga Labs’ images and trademarks, although the financial terms of the settlement have not been publicly disclosed.
🚨 YUGA LABS Settles Lawsuit Against Ryder Ribs and Jeremy Kahn
This deal ends the high-profile case of alleged Bored Ape counterfeiting
The agreement is confidential and permanently prohibits Ripps and Cohen from using yuga’s images and trademarks
Huge W for yoga 🔥 pic.twitter.com/jQdqe0lXFC
– Block News (@blocknewsdotcom) April 8, 2026
The decision closes one of the most significant intellectual property enforcement actions in the short legal history of the NFT industry — a case that led, at the appellate level, to the Ninth Circuit’s controlling ruling that NFTs qualify as “goods” under the Lanham Act and are therefore protected under federal trademark law.
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RR/BAYC and Yuga Labs’ Underlying Legal Claims: How the Dispute Progressed Through Federal Court
The mechanism works as follows: Yoga filed suit on July 25, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (Case No. 2:22-cv-04355), alleging violations of the Lanham Act including false identification of provenance and cybersquatting, after Reps and Kahn launched a project—commonly referred to as RR/BAYC—that reproduced identical images of the original BAYC set under the stated rationale that the work constituted “expressive appropriation art.” Protected by the First Amendment.
Rips also publicly claimed, starting in June 2022, that BAYC’s artwork contained hidden racist and anti-Semitic tropes – allegations that Yoga described as a “campaign of harassment” but were not pursued through defamation proceedings.
source: Thomson Reuters
On March 2, 2023, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter granted partial summary judgment for Yuga, ruling that the BAYC marks were valid and protectable — finding them conceptually arbitrary and commercially powerful — and that the defendants’ use created the potential for consumer confusion in the NFT market. Walter rejected several affirmative defenses, including nominal fair use, First Amendment protections, bare licensing, and unclean hands.
After a court trial on remedies, Walter’s final judgment on August 4, 2023 awarded Yuga more than $8 million in total — nearly $7 million in attorneys’ fees, plus restitution, legal damages, and costs — and ordered Ripps and Cohen to turn over the infringing NFTs and associated intellectual property within two weeks.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit later overturned summary judgment on the issue of consumer confusion, remanding that question for trial, while affirming that NFTs qualified as “goods” under the Lanham Act – a ruling that effectively vacated the $9 million penalty and restored the need for substantive proceedings.
The Ninth Circuit also rejected Ripps and Cahen’s counterclaims seeking to invalidate Yuga’s copyright in BAYC’s artwork. It appears that the situation of being ready for trial – with the issue of confusion unresolved and the need for new procedures – is what prompted the parties to settle.
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Daniel Francis is a technical writer and Web3 educator specializing in macroeconomics and DeFi mechanics. A crypto native since 2017, Daniel brings his background in cross-chain analytics to author evidence-based reports and detailed guides. It is certified by the Blockchain Council and is dedicated to providing “information gain” that cuts through the market noise to find blockchain’s real-world utility.
