Bored Ape NFT Protected by Trademark Law, Ninth Circuit Says

Bored Ape Yacht Club nonfungible tokens—digital assets depicting cartoon monkeys that exploded in popularity during the crypto boom—are commercial goods that can be protected under trademark law, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

But the three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously said the Bored Ape NFT maker, Yuga Labs Inc., had failed to show that a pair of conceptual artists selling identical looking NFTs had violated Yuga’s trademarks.

The opinion reverses a lower court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of Yuga and wipes out $8 million in damages and attorneys’ fees that artists ...