After years of tension in the NFT market, Yuga Labs has resolved the Bored Ape lawsuit with artist Ryder Ripps and his business partner Jeremy Cahen through a confidential settlement.
Settlement ends two-year dispute over RR/BAYC
Yuga Labs confirmed it has settled its trademark case against Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, closing a high-profile fight over Bored Ape Yacht Club imagery that began in 2022. The dispute focused on the RR/BAYC NFT collection, which reused BAYC artwork and branding.
The settlement was disclosed in a filing in California federal court, which proposed permanent injunctions. Moreover, those orders would bar Ripps and Cahen from using Yuga’s trademarks, logos, or any confusingly similar imagery in the future.
However, the filing did not reveal the size or structure of any payment. The financial terms of the agreement remain undisclosed, leaving open questions about how the parties resolved the previously imposed damages.
Yuga’s original claims against RR/BAYC
Yuga sued in 2022 alleging that Ripps and Cahen minted and sold RR/BAYC NFTs as lookalike tokens tied to the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection. According to the complaint, they allegedly earned millions of dollars by confusing buyers into believing the project was associated with the official BAYC brand.
Moreover, Yuga argued that the RR/BAYC branding infringed multiple trademarks and diluted the reputation of one of the most recognizable NFT franchises. The company also described online commentary from Ripps as part of a coordinated harassment campaign against the BAYC community.
Ripps publicly rejected those allegations. He framed his project as “expressive appropriation art” and a form of satire aimed at critiquing BAYC. That said, he also claimed the original Bored Ape artwork secretly embedded racist and antisemitic symbols, a charge that Yuga strongly denied.
Court rulings and the Ninth Circuit reversal
In 2023, U.S. District Judge John Walter initially sided with Yuga Labs. He found that the RR/BAYC collection could cause consumer confusion in the NFT marketplace and that Ripps and Cahen had violated Yuga’s trademark rights.
Walter then ordered the defendants to pay nearly $9 million in disgorgement of profits, statutory penalties, and legal fees. Moreover, that ruling was viewed at the time as a strong warning to creators launching derivative NFT projects that leaned on established brands.
However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit later intervened. In a key decision, the appellate panel vacated the almost $9 million damages award and sent the case back for trial so a jury could determine whether purchasers were actually misled.
The Ninth Circuit largely rejected Ripps’s broad fair use defense but recognized that a fact-finder should weigh the evidence of confusion. That decision was widely interpreted in legal circles as confirmation that NFTs fall squarely within existing trademark frameworks, even as courts continue to refine how those rules apply.
Settlement avoids jury trial and future RR/BAYC use
The newly filed settlement now halts the litigation before any jury could hear the evidence. A proposed order in California federal court would permanently enjoin Ripps and Cahen from using Yuga’s BAYC marks, names, or artwork, or from launching similar NFT projects tied to the brand.
Moreover, the agreement closes a case that many in the crypto and legal communities had been watching as a potential landmark for nft trademark litigation. Industry observers had expected the trial to test the boundaries between artistic commentary and commercial exploitation in the digital asset space.
However, with the settlement, the parties avoid further public testimony over the RR/BAYC project and the controversial accusations Ripps made about BAYC imagery. The lack of disclosed payment details means the precise economic impact on each side remains opaque.
Background on Ripps, Cahen and the BAYC ecosystem
Ripps drew additional attention by asserting that he had destroyed the private keys associated with the RR/BAYC contract. Yuga later asked the court to sanction him, questioning whether those statements were accurate and whether they impeded enforcement of any eventual judgment.
Cahen, who is also known online as Pauly0x, previously launched an NFT marketplace called Not Larva Labs. The branding referenced Larva Labs, the original creator of CryptoPunks, a blue-chip NFT collection whose intellectual property was later acquired by Yuga.
Moreover, Bored Ape Yacht Club surged during the NFT market’s peak, becoming one of the best-known collections. It attracted celebrity owners and recorded some of the highest sale prices in the sector, turning several BAYC tokens into cultural status symbols.
That said, the drawn-out legal fight with Ripps and Cahen cast a shadow over the brand’s legal posture and highlighted ongoing tensions around parody, appropriation art, and intellectual property in Web3.
Implications for future NFT trademark disputes
The resolution of this case will likely inform how other NFT creators and brands approach derivatives and satire. While the Ninth Circuit’s earlier ruling suggested that token-based assets can be protected under existing trademark law, this settlement leaves some questions unanswered for future disputes.
Moreover, lawyers will scrutinize the case record and yuga labs settlement terms references to assess risk for new projects that remix or reference existing collections. Marketplaces and platforms may also tighten listing policies to reduce exposure to infringement claims.
The two-year legal battle officially closed with the settlement filing dated April 8, 2026. With the RR/BAYC conflict now resolved, attention will shift to how courts handle the next wave of intellectual property clashes in the evolving NFT industry.
In summary, the settlement between Yuga Labs, Ryder Ripps, and Jeremy Cahen ends a closely watched conflict over Bored Ape imagery, cements some legal expectations for NFT trademarks, and underscores that unresolved tensions between artistic critique and brand protection will continue to shape Web3.