Uniswap Labs wins patent lawsuit, judge dismisses Bancor's allegations

ChainCatcher reports that the founding team of Uniswap Labs won a patent infringement lawsuit this week. The case, brought by Bancor's founders against their decentralized exchange (DEX), was dismissed by Judge John Koeltl in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, citing that the plaintiff failed to present a reasonable request for relief. The case involved code used in Uniswap's initial 2018 protocol release.

Bprotocol Foundation and LocalCoin Ltd. claimed that the code was based on Bancor's patented infrastructure, alleging that Uniswap Labs profited significantly without permission. Jolie Yang, Assistant General Counsel at Uniswap, stated, "This victory is significant for the DeFi community, as it protects developers to innovate and improve existing concepts without fear of patent trolls." The ruling noted that Bancor's patent claims abstract concepts such as currency exchange, which are not protected under U.S. patent law. The mechanism (CPAMM) was originally proposed by Bancor in 2017, promoted by Uniswap in 2018, and became a mainstream design for early DEXs. Bancor had previously open-sourced the CPAMM code.