Bancor sues Uniswap for patent infringement

Bprotocol Foundation and LocalCoin have filed a lawsuit against Uniswap Labs and the Uniswap Foundation, alleging patent infringement.

On May 20, 2025, the Bprotocol Foundation and LocalCoin, entities behind Bancor Protocol and the Bancor token BNT, announced the lawsuit against Uniswap (UNI). The platforms filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Bancor is accusing Uniswap for infringing on the protocol’s patents around technology on smart contracts use in decentralized trading. Uniswap is a leading decentralized exchange that commands huge volumes and users in the crypto market.

In the lawsuit, Bancor alleges that Uniswap has used its patented technology underpinning the constant product automated market maker (CPAMM), the core mechanism powering the Uniswap Protocol. Bprotocol and LocalCoin claim this constitutes unauthorized use of proprietary technology.

“When an organization continuously uses our invention without our authorization and does so as a means of competing with us, we must take action,” reads part of the press release Bancor published on Tuesday.

The project claims Uniswap has relied on this technology over the past eight years, all without permission from Bancor.

The legal action, according to Bprotocol Foundation and LocalCoin, is intended to defend their intellectual property from continued unlicensed use.

Bancor filed for a patent for its decentralized trading technology in 2017, having invented it in 2016. It’s the same technology that it used to launch its AMM powered DEX protocol.

Bprotocol Foundation and LocalCoin say they own all rights pertaining to the invention, and that Uniswap Labs has illegally used it in the Uniswap Protocol since launching v1 in November 2018. The protocol unveiled its new DEX platform Carbon in April 2023.

The Uniswap Protocol meanwhile has grown since v1.

Recently, it crossed the $3 trillion cumulative swap volume, a milestone that comes amid a resurgence in the DeFi market.

Meanwhile, the total value locked in the protocol has increased significantly amid upgrades that have seen Uniswap launch v4.

According to DeFiLlama data, Uniswap TVL currently stands at over $4.8 billion.