Bancor Sues Uniswap Over Alleged Patent Infringement

According to Foresight News, Bancor has filed a lawsuit against Uniswap, accusing it of infringing on a patent from 2017. This patent covers the core structure for automated on-chain token swaps without a centralized intermediary. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks unspecified damages. The legal action is initiated by the Bprotocol Foundation, a nonprofit supporting the development of the Bancor protocol, and LocalCoin Ltd., the original developers of Bancor. They allege that Uniswap's protocol is built on Bancor's patented constant product automated market maker (CPAMM) infrastructure. Bancor invented the CPAMM model in 2016 and developed a mechanism for permissionless on-chain transactions via smart contracts. The protocol released a white paper and filed a U.S. patent application in 2017. That same year, Bancor obtained two patents and launched the first decentralized exchange (DEX) based on the CPAMM model. The lawsuit claims that Uniswap's original protocol, launched in November 2018, used the same CPAMM design without authorization. Bancor accuses Uniswap of deploying its intellectual property without consent, thereby "profiting unlawfully."