Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Ape collections, has announced that a settlement was reached with Thomas Lehman.
Lehman was in charge of building smart contracts and websites for RR/BAYC, Ryder Ripp’s duplicate BAYC project. Ripps released a collection of 10k NFTs that feature similar features, names, and traits to the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club tokens. The copycat project remains in an ongoing, separate lawsuit involving the infringement of a trademark.
On the 20th of January 2023, Thomas Lehman received a legal complaint following his alleged role in developing and coding the smart contract and website for the duplicate NFT collection. The settlement requires Lehman to prevent from using the BAYC mark in any manner and destroy any assets that currently display the mark. Also, any RR/BAYC NFT owned by Lehman must be burned.
Lehman stated that he is happy for settling the court case with Yuga Labs on the trademark infringement. Furthermore, he declared that he had no intention of hurting the Yuga Labs brand.
A spokesperson of Yuga Labs stated that the company is pleased with Lehman’s confession about his role in the Yuga Labs trademark infringement and marketing, developing and selling fake NFTs.
