Judge dismisses Bancor’s patent infringement lawsuit against Uniswap Labs, ruling that Bancor’s patents claimed abstract ideas ineligible for patent protection under US law. District Judge John Koeltl granted Uniswap Labs’ motion to dismiss, finding the plaintiffs failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Jolie Yang, Uniswap Labs’ assistant general counsel, called the ruling a win for DeFi, protecting developers’ ability to build on prior work without patent trolls.
The dispute centered on the CPAMM mechanism used in the first Uniswap protocol from 2018. Bancor argued its CPAMM code carried exclusive licensing rights in commercial implementations, while Uniswap Labs contended the ideas were foundational and not patent-eligible. The case occurred as Uniswap’s UNI token rose about 30% after BlackRock signaled plans to bring its BUIDL token to Uniswap and disclosed UNI purchases.
Bancor released the CPAMM code as open source, meaning anyone could use or modify it without permission. The court ruled Bancor’s patents claimed abstract ideas, such as currency exchange, and thus were not patent-eligible. This decision follows earlier DeFi patent actions, including True Return Systems’ 2022 suits against MakerDAO and Compound, which were dismissed after the DeFi Education Fund purchased TRS’s patent in August 2024.
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