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

According to DL News, the founding team of Uniswap Labs won a patent infringement lawsuit this week. The case against its decentralized exchange (DEX) was brought by the founders of Bancor, but New York District Judge John Koeltl ruled on Tuesday to dismiss the lawsuit, stating that the plaintiff failed to present a reasonable request for relief. The case involves the code used in Uniswap's original protocol from 2018.

Bprotocol Foundation and LocalCoin Ltd. accused the code of belonging to Bancor's patented infrastructure, claiming that Uniswap Labs "profited significantly" without permission. Uniswap's Assistant General Counsel Jolie Yang stated, "This victory is significant for the DeFi community, protecting developers to innovate and improve existing concepts without the worry of patent trolls." The ruling noted that Bancor's patent claims abstract concepts like currency exchange, which are not protected under U.S. patent law. The mechanism (CPAMM) was initially 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.