Court Grants Youtube’s Motion to Dismiss Ripple Lab Trademark Lawsuit
On Friday, the Northern District of California granted defendant YouTube’s motion to dismiss a complaint filed by Ripple Labs, an “enterprise blockchain company,” and its CEO Bradley Garlinghouse. The complaint alleged trademark infringement, misappropriation of identity and publicity rights and unfair competition law claims against YouTube and was dismissed with leave to amend.
Initially, the plaintiffs filed a complaint in April against YouTube for allowing scammers to impersonate their CEO by using their registered trademarks and publicly available content of CEO Garlinghouse, including interviews, in order to make it look like the scammers were Ripple. The scammers then engaged in a fraudulent scheme involving the plaintiffs’ cryptocurrency called XRP.
The plaintiffs sued YouTube for allegedly not properly addressing the scam. They asserted contributory trademark infringement pursuant to the Lanham Act, misappropriation of Garlinghouse’s identity and his right of publicity in violation of California law, as well as violations of California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL) based on the trademark and state law allegations. In September, Ripple Labs filed an opposition to YouTube’s motion to dismiss claiming that YouTube contributorily infringed and disregarded takedown notices that the plaintiffs filed.
