For years, the IP conversations around crypto tokens focused almost entirely on copyright: who owns the underlying artwork, and what rights does minting actually convey. A recent Ninth Circuit ruling in Yuga Labs v. Ripps changes that conversation.[1] For the first time, a federal appeals court held that you can have a trademark over a crypto token product. The token is a good itself — not just a copyrighted image.
For game studios building virtual goods, skins, or blockchain-tied items, that distinction matters more than it might sound.
Why this case is a big deal
Trademark law protects the signal a brand sends to consumers, the assurance that a product with a specific logo, name, or design reliably comes from a particular source. Yuga Labs v. Ripps recognized that a token can carry trademark significance too. If a trademark reliably signals to buyers that this digital collectable “comes from Yuga Labs” or “this is an authentic BAYC image,” the law now treats that signal the same way it would treat a physical product’s brand mark. The case has already been recognized as an Impact Case of the Year and named among the year’s top trademark decisions, a sign the legal industry sees this as a genuine inflection point.
What it means for game studios
If your studio issues in-game items, skins, or virtual goods tied to blockchain assets, this ruling cuts in two directions:
- It’s a stronger enforcement tool. If a competitor or bad actor mints look-alike items designed to confuse players about their source, you may now have a trademark claim available, not just a copyright claim to protect the product. Trademark law also opens up remedies and enforcement mechanisms (like presumptions of harm and actions before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board) that copyright doesn't offer.
- It raises the clearance bar before launch. The same logic protects other brand owners from you. Before minting or launching a line of branded virtual goods, studios now have real incentive to run trademark clearance the same way they would before launching a physical merchandise line, checking for conflicting marks, securing registrations, and documenting first use. Skipping that step no longer just risks a copyright dispute; it risks a trademark fight with its own set of remedies and timelines.
The bigger picture
This is still a genuinely new and developing area of law. Yuga Labs v. Ripps answers the threshold question: yes, a virtual product can be a trademark, but plenty of downstream questions remain open, including how courts will handle likelihood-of-confusion analysis for digital-only goods, how territorial trademark rights map onto a borderless blockchain market, and how enforcement plays out against anonymous or pseudonymous infringers.
For studios operating in new technologies with AI creations or experimenting with blockchain-tied items, the practical takeaway is straightforward: treat your virtual goods program the way you’d treat any brand launch. Clear it, register it, and be ready to enforce it, because the courts have now confirmed there’s something real to enforce.
[1] Fenwick represented Yuga Labs in Yuga Labs v. Ripps. The Fenwick team included litigation partners Eric Ball, Molly Melcher and Todd Gregorian, litigation counsel Kimberly Culp, litigation associates Ryan Kwock, Mary Griffin, and Katie Hauh.