Unicoin has sued Uniswap Labs in the Southern District of New York, asking a judge to rule that its UNICOIN brand does not infringe Uniswap's trademarks and to cancel Uniswap's federal UNI registration. The filing follows months of cease-and-desist demands from Uniswap that began in June and escalated as Unicoin prepared a planned public offering.
The company filed its Sept. 8 complaint after Uniswap accused the company of trademark infringement, dilution, cybersquatting and unfair competition. Uniswap had known about Unicoin for at least two years before making its first trademark claims in June, according to the filing.
Unicoin lawsuit targets Uniswap's UNI trademark
The dispute began with a June 3 letter demanding that Unicoin permanently stop using UNICOIN and other names containing UNI, transfer unicoin.com and unicoin.org, provide an accounting of its revenue and profits, and reimburse Uniswap's legal fees.
Unicoin rejected the demands on June 23, telling Uniswap it had independently developed the UNICOIN name and had used it continuously since 2021. Uniswap rejected that response on July 17, maintaining that UNICOIN was likely to cause confusion with UNISWAP, UNI and UNICHAIN. It sent a final letter on Aug. 14 again demanding the removal of references to the UNICOIN token, and Unicoin has now asked the court to settle the dispute before Uniswap can bring an infringement case of its own.
Unicoin says UNI is too common for exclusive protection
Unicoin's complaint challenges the strength of the UNI mark itself. Uniswap's federal registration for UNI lists Sept. 16, 2020 as the first commercial-use date and was registered in February 2024. Unicoin argues that "uni" is a common prefix derived from the Latin word unus, meaning "one," appearing in words from unit and union to university and unicorn. Its complaint says more than 3,600 US trademark registrations contain UNI, with approximately 1,000 currently live, and it names several crypto projects with similar naming conventions, including Unibot, Unifi Protocol DAO and UniLend Finance. Because the UNI registration is less than five years old, Unicoin argues it has not yet become incontestable under federal trademark law.
Unicoin disputes risk of consumer confusion
Unicoin's complaint describes UNICOIN as an asset-backed cryptocurrency marketed under a tagline it quotes in the filing. According to the complaint: "The Smart Coin for Smart People" — while Uniswap operates a decentralized exchange tied to its UNI governance token and Unichain blockchain. The company said it had withdrawn plans for a separate governance token under the UNICOIN name and renamed a planned proprietary blockchain so it no longer used a UNI prefix.
It said years of marketing by both companies had produced no known cases of consumers asking whether it was connected with Uniswap, and it claimed to have sold to thousands of investors in more than 100 countries while spending millions of dollars on advertising, including Times Square billboards, buses and taxis.
Trademark fight comes before Unicoin offering
Unicoin claims the timing of Uniswap's demands is significant because they arrived shortly before its planned public offering. The company said Uniswap founder Hayden Adams had publicly commented on Unicoin in May 2024, arguing it should face scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission — evidence, Unicoin says, of personal hostility that Uniswap has not yet answered in the case.
The SEC later sued Unicoin and several executives in May 2025, accusing them of raising more than $100 million through allegedly misleading and unregistered securities offerings; Unicoin CEO Alex Konanykhin denied the allegations. Uniswap, meanwhile, won dismissal of a class action accusing it of facilitating rug pulls in March. It also won a patent lawsuit brought by Bancor-linked entities in February.
In its latest suit, Unicoin is seeking declarations of non-infringement and no dilution, cancellation of the UNI registration, and rulings against cybersquatting and unfair competition, plus attorney fees and costs, and has demanded a jury trial.
Source: crypto.news
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