TransparentBusiness Inc., the corporate entity operating under the business name Unicoin, has initiated legal action against Universal Navigation Inc., which does business as Uniswap Labs, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit seeks formal judicial declarations establishing that Unicoin’s primary UNICOIN brand does not infringe or dilute the various trademarks claimed by the decentralized finance giant.
The complaint, filed on Tuesday, requests that the federal court rule that the UNICOIN mark avoids any infringement or dilution of Uniswap’s established portfolio of intellectual property, which includes the UNI, UNISWAP, and UNICHAIN marks. Furthermore, the legal filing goes a step further by asking the court to cancel the existing United States trademark registration held for the short and heavily contested UNI mark.
According to the details outlined in the lawsuit, the legal friction between the two entities escalated rapidly following a series of communications from Uniswap’s legal counsel. The complaint states that attorneys representing Uniswap Labs dispatched three separate demand letters on June 3, July 17, and August 14, respectively. These formal notices accused Unicoin of multiple intellectual property violations, including trademark infringement, dilution, cybersquatting, and unfair competition, while explicitly threatening further escalation and legal proceedings if demands were not met.
The demand letters insisted that Unicoin immediately cease and desist from utilizing the UNICOIN moniker alongside any other UNI-formative branding. Additionally, the correspondence demanded that the company transfer ownership of its high-profile digital properties, specifically the unicoin.com and unicoin.org domain names, to Uniswap Labs. The letters also sought a detailed accounting of Unicoin’s revenues and profits, alongside a demand for the reimbursement of Uniswap’s mounting legal fees.
In response to these aggressive demands, Unicoin’s lawsuit asks the court to provide definitive legal clarity. Specifically, the complaint seeks a declaration confirming that the operation of the unicoin.com and unicoin.org web domains does not violate the federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, shielding the project from potential domain forfeiture and statutory damages as it prepares for public exposure.
As the legal battle unfolds in the Southern District of New York, representatives from Cointelegraph have reached out to Uniswap Labs to secure an official comment or statement regarding the newly filed lawsuit.
The timing of the legal confrontation adds significant pressure to both parties, arriving just weeks before the publicly scheduled September 28 launch date for the UNCN token, a milestone that Unicoin currently highlights prominently across its official website and promotional materials. Market observers note that intellectual property disputes within the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors have become increasingly common as projects scale and seek to secure distinct brand identities in an crowded digital asset ecosystem.
At the time of writing, the broader decentralized finance landscape continues to demonstrate robust activity. Data compiled by DeFiLlama ranked the Uniswap protocol in the prestigious first position among all decentralized exchanges evaluated by 24-hour trading volume, processing more than $3.9 billion in transactions. This immense market dominance underscores the substantial financial stakes and brand equity associated with the Uniswap name and its various ecosystem identifiers.
The intellectual property dispute between Unicoin and Uniswap Labs highlights the growing intersection of traditional trademark law and digital asset branding. As regulatory scrutiny and brand protection efforts intensify across the cryptocurrency industry, companies are increasingly turning to federal courts to resolve naming conflicts well ahead of major product rollouts and token generation events.
