One of the original creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT Copycat Collection, RR/BAYC, filed a notice of objection against Yuga Labs’ 10 trademark registrations.

This action signals another strange twist in the ongoing fight over intellectual property between the people who created BAYC, Yuga Labs, and the people who founded RR/BAYC, Jeremy Cahen and Ryder Ripps.

On February 9, Cahen filed the notice of objection with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. At the time this article was written, the opposition status on each and every trademark application was listed as “pending.”

Most of Yuga Labs’ trademark applications were submitted during the second half of 2021. They went through a series of BAYC logos, artwork, and trademarks that can potentially be used on a variety of digital products such as artwork. . based on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), trading cards and wearables from the metaverse.

The files also include potential for tangibly produced BAYC products such as clothing, jewelry, watches, and key chains, as well as the potential to provide entertainment services such as games, television, and music.

In a February 11 interview with Bloomberg Law, a Yuga Labs spokeswoman downplayed the chances of success of Cahen’s challenge, saying the move was just one more effort to throw the company into trouble.

Jeremy Cahen’s filing is just another attempt to divert attention from the real issue at hand, which is his infringement of Yuga’s intellectual property, they said. “The Trademark Office has preliminarily approved Yuga Labs’ trademark applications, and we look forward to its full approval in due course,” they added.

Cahen provides a full list of “reasons for disagreement” to the files made by Yuga Labs in the notice he sent. In particular, Cahen claims that the corporation “relinquished all rights” to certain logo designs and artwork as a result of the BAYC NFT sales that transferred “all rights” to the owners of the digital images. Cahen bases this argument on the fact that the company sold BAYC NFTs.

In addition to this, it claims that Yuga Labs is not the rightful owner of certain skull designs, as the company is said to have transferred ownership of these rights to ApeCoin’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) in March 2022.

In addition, Cahen contends that Yuga Labs did not provide a “bona fide intent to legally use” the trademarks in its filings, even though NFTs must be registered and classified as securities under federal law. Cahen’s argument is based on the fact that NFTs must be registered.

Yuga Labs, the company that developed BAYC, filed a lawsuit against digital artists Ryder Ripps and Cahen in June 2022, accusing them of exploiting the BAYC graphics in their RR/BAYC collection. The company also claimed that the two individuals were “trolling Yuga Labs and misleading customers” on purpose into buying their knockoff NFTs. This was an additional accusation made by the company.

Cahen’s action comes just three days after Yuga Labs settled a separate case against website RR/BAYC and smart contract creator Thomas Lehman. Cahen’s move also comes just three days after the Yuga Labs deal.

As part of the settlement, Lehman essentially agreed to a permanent injunction barring it from participating in future “confusingly comparable” BAYC-related companies. This provision was included in the agreement. Lehman has distanced itself from Ryder Ripp and Cahen in a statement that he has made public.