Ryder Ripps

Nifty News: Yuga Labs scores court battle win, Mandala Metaverse to drop on Polkadot and more…

A metaverse/AR story game is coming to Polkadot, Square Enix has made another Web3 gaming play, and an NFT esports cricket game has launched on Tezos.

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creator Yuga Labs has scored a key victory in its long-running court battle with Ryder Ripps, the co-creator of copycat nonfungible token (NFT) project RR/BAYC.

Yuga Labs initially filed a complaint against Ryder Ripps and his co-founder, Jeremy Cahen, back in July 2022, alleging that the duo had engaged in trademark infringement, false advertising and unfair competition, among other things.

In a pre-trial summary judgment ruling on April 21, the United States District Court for the Central District of California found that Ripps and Cahen had infringed Yuga Lab’s trademarks with their RR/BAYC NFT collection.

The court further ruled that Yuga Labs is entitled to an injunction and damages, the latter of which will be determined at trial.

In a message shared with Cointelegraph, a Yuga Labs spokesperson said:

“In a landmark legal victory for Web3, a federal judge found that Ryder Ripps and Jermey Cahen infringed Yuga Lab’s intellectual property. This isn’t just a win for us, it’s a win for the entire Web3 industry to hold scammers and counterfeiters accountable.”

Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen created RR/BAYC back in May 2022 as a satire and protest against Yuga Labs. The project essentially uses all of the same imagery as the original BAYC NFTs.

Ripps, in particular, is a leading proponent of the conspiracy theory that Yuga Labs purposely designed the BAYC artwork to convey racist caricatures. Additionally, Ripps also asserts that the project’s logo and branding have several nods to certain Nazi symbols and language.

Mandala Metaverse to drop on Polkadot

Upcoming cross-chain augmented reality (AR) game Mandala Metaverse has chosen Polkadot parachain Astar Network to host its first major NFT drop on April 28.

Mandala Metaverse is a story-based project with content spanning TV, graphic novels, gaming and AR. Its gaming elements have been developed in Epic Games’ AAA quality Unreal Engine.

The drop is called “Cryptonauts,” and the NFTs depict various avatars that will serve as playable characters in the game. The artwork was illustrated by comic artist Bruce Zick, who has worked with giants such as Disney and Marvel.

1/ Mandala Metaverse (@enterthemandala), a cross-platform game and interoperable metaverse, has chosen @AstarNetwork for its NFT drop, leveraging features that are available #OnlyOnPolkadot. pic.twitter.com/cnK3Zcf4AG

— Polkadot (@Polkadot) April 21, 2023

The Polkadot blockchain is not necessarily known for hosting gaming and NFT projects, with the network not even having any recorded sales data on aggregators such as CryptoSlam.

Regarding the decision to take the Cryptonauts NFTs to Polkadot, Mandala Metaverse CEO Jon Shanker noted:

“Polkadot has real future-proof NFT applications, such as nesting, staking and the ability to send NFTs over bridges – plus many other innovative ways to use NFT assets. We can now do things we didn’t think were possible.”

Square Enix partners with Elixir Games

Final Fantasy developer Square Enix has partnered with Web3 infrastructure firm Elixir Games to bring blockchain gaming to the mainstream.

The move was announced on April 19, though specific details on the partnership are still sparse.

Elixir hosts both traditional and Web3 games on its platform and also offers Web3 distribution features for its partnered games, such as NFT sales and marketplaces.

As such, Square Enix will likely take advantage of those features when launching games via Elixir, something the firm has become increasingly interested in doing over the past year or so.

“This partnership brings us closer to Web3 gaming mass adoption. Our team is incredibly excited to bring our technology to work, and we foresee Elixir users playing Web2 and Web3 games alike without distinction,” said Carlos Roldan, Elixir Games’ CEO, as part of the announcement. Roldan added:

“2023 has already seen more industry leaders enter the space with impactful projects, and we anticipate to see more as the year progresses. We’ve put all efforts to ensure we are ready for scalability.”

NFT cricket game on Tezos

A free-to-play multiplayer NFT cricket strategy game called Cricket Stars has been launched on the Tezos blockchain.

The game is being led by Tezos India — an organization that focuses on developing projects on Tezos — in partnership with esports game publisher GoLive Games. Despite the name, however, no licensing deals with actual cricket stars appear to be in place.

Cricket Stars follows a similar model to other sports NFT games, like Sorare, by offering player cards that can be used to have an effect on the game or traded on the marketplace. The game also offers player vs. player modes, knockout tournaments and esports tournaments.

“We understand the power of blockchain technology and its role in the gaming ecosystem. Our partnership with Tezos India is an astounding statement of blockchain technology becoming an integral part of the gaming industry,“ noted GoLive Games founder Ravi Kiran as part of the announcement.

BAYC copycat files opposition to 10 Yuga Labs trademark applications

A Yuga Labs spokesperson has played down the significance of the opposition notice and suggested that the RR/BAYC co-founder is just trying to cause trouble.

One of the founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) copycat NFT collection RR/BAYC has filed an opposition notice against 10 trademark applications from Yuga Labs.

The move marks another strange twist in the ongoing intellectual property dispute between BAYC creators Yuga Labs and RR/BAYC founders Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen.

Cahen filed the opposition notice to the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on Feb. 9. The opposition status on all of the trademark filings currently read “pending” at the time of writing.

Yuga Labs’ trademark applications were mostly submitted in the latter half of 2021. They covered a bunch of BAYC logos, artwork and branding for potential use across digital products such as nonfungible token (NFT)-based art, trading cards and metaverse wearables.

The filings also list the potential for physical BAYC products, including clothing, jewelry, watches and keychains, along with entertainment services such as gaming, television and music.

Speaking with Bloomberg Law on Feb. 11, a Yuga Labs spokesperson played down the chances of Cahen’s opposition being successful and suggested that the move was just another attempt to cause trouble for the firm.

“The Trademark Office has preliminarily approved Yuga Labs’ trademark applications for registration, and we look forward to their full approval in due course,” they said, adding that:

“Jeremy Cahen’s filing is just another attempt to distract from the real issue at hand, his infringement of the Yuga intellectual property.”

In the notice, Cahen puts forward a lengthy list of “grounds for opposition” against Yuga Labs’ filings. In particular, Cahen claims that the company “abandoned any rights” to certain logo and artwork designs due to BAYC NFT sales granting “all rights” of the digital images to the owners.

He also claims that Yuga Labs is not the rightful owner of specific skull designs due to the firm supposedly handing over the rights to the ApeCoin decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) back in March 2022.

Additionally, Cahen argues that Yuga Labs failed to provide a “bona fide intent to lawfully use” the trademarks in its filings, as the NFTs should be registered and classified as securities under federal law.

BAYC creators Yuga Labs sued digital artists Ryder Ripps and Cahen back in June 2022 for using BAYC imagery in the RR/BAYC collection. The firm also alleged that the duo was intentionally “trolling Yuga Labs and scamming consumers” into purchasing their copycat NFTs .

The move from Cahen also comes just three days after Yuga Labs settled a separate lawsuit against RR/BAYC website and smart contract developer Thomas Lehman.

As part of the settlement, Lehman essentially agreed to a permanent injunction barring him from partaking in any “confusingly similar” BAYC-related projects. In a statement, Lehman also distanced himself from Ryder Ripp and Cahen.