Unicoin has taken Uniswap Labs to federal court in New York, asking judges to confirm that its UNICOIN name and unicorn logo do not infringe Uniswap’s UNI, UNISWAP or UNICHAIN trademarks.
The company is also seeking the cancellation of Uniswap’s US federal registration for UNI, arguing that the term is generic or descriptive, widely used and does not identify a single commercial source.
The complaint, filed on 8 September in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York and shared with crypto.news, follows months of correspondence between the two companies. Unicoin says Uniswap accused it of trademark infringement, dilution, cybersquatting and unfair competition, and demanded that it stop using the UNICOIN name and transfer ownership of the domains unicoin.com and unicoin.org.
Unicoin is asking the court to allow it to continue using its name, logo and domains without infringing any rights held by Uniswap. It has also requested declarations covering non-infringement, dilution, cybersquatting and unfair competition, as well as reasonable legal fees and costs. The company has demanded a jury trial on issues eligible to be heard by a jury.
Dispute began with June legal letter
According to the complaint, the dispute escalated after a letter from Uniswap’s lawyers on 3 June. The letter called on Unicoin to permanently stop using UNICOIN and other names containing “UNI” in connection with cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, decentralised finance or a decentralised ecosystem.
Uniswap also sought the transfer of the two domains, an account of Unicoin’s revenue and profits, reimbursement of its legal expenses and an undertaking that would prevent future use or registration of the marks in dispute.
Unicoin rejected those demands on 23 June. It said it had developed the UNICOIN name independently and had used it continuously since 2021. Its lawyers argued that the branding, appearance and commercial meanings of the companies were different, while the widespread use of the UNI prefix weakened Uniswap’s claim to exclusive rights.
Uniswap rejected that response on 17 July. It maintained that UNICOIN was likely to cause confusion with UNISWAP, UNI and UNICHAIN, and warned that it could pursue further legal remedies if the dispute was not resolved.
A further exchange took place before a final letter was sent on 14 August. Unicoin says Uniswap again demanded the removal of references to the UNICOIN token and said it would not continue corresponding on the matter, while reserving the right to take legal action.
Unicoin has now gone to court seeking a ruling before Uniswap files its own infringement claim.
Unicoin challenges strength of UNI registration
A central part of the lawsuit concerns Uniswap’s federal registration for UNI. The registration covers technology used to issue cryptocurrency tokens whose holders can vote on and govern a blockchain protocol.
The registration states that the mark was first used commercially on 16 September 2020 and was registered in February 2024.
Unicoin argues that “uni” is a common prefix derived from the Latin word “unus”, meaning “one”. It says the letters appear in words including unit, union, universe, university and unicorn.
The complaint claims that more than 3,600 registrations in the United States Patent and Trademark Office database contain UNI, with about 1,000 of those registrations still active.
The company also points to other cryptocurrency projects. It says several unrelated digital currencies have traded under the UNI ticker, while names including Unibot, Unifi Protocol DAO, UniLend Finance and Unibright use similar naming patterns. Some of the crypto projects cited in the complaint existed before Uniswap launched its governance token in September 2020.
Unicoin wants the UNI registration cancelled because it says the mark is generic or merely descriptive, lacks acquired distinctiveness and does not function as an identifier of one source. It also argues the registration is less than five years old and has therefore not become incontestable under federal trademark law.
Companies point to different products and logos
Unicoin says its business centres on an asset-backed cryptocurrency promoted under the tagline “The Smart Coin for Smart People”. It contrasts that with Uniswap, which operates a decentralised exchange linked to its UNI governance token and Unichain blockchain.
The company says it has abandoned plans for a separate governance token under the UNICOIN name. It has also renamed a planned proprietary blockchain so that it no longer uses a UNI prefix.
The complaint argues that the names convey different meanings: UNICOIN refers to a digital coin, UNISWAP suggests trading or exchange, and UNICHAIN relates to blockchain infrastructure.
Unicoin says years of marketing by both businesses have produced no known instances of consumers asking whether the companies are connected. It claims to have sold to thousands of investors and coinholders in more than 100 countries, while spending millions of dollars on advertising, including billboards in Times Square, buses, taxis and major industry events.
The filing also compares the companies’ unicorn logos on page 14. Unicoin describes its own logo as angular and formed from sharp lines, while characterising Uniswap’s imagery as based on curved unicorn designs.
Timing linked to planned public offering
Unicoin says the timing of Uniswap’s demands is significant because they arrived shortly before a planned public offering.
It claims Uniswap founder Hayden Adams had publicly commented on the company in May 2024, showing that Uniswap knew about Unicoin more than two years before sending its first trademark letter. According to the complaint, Adams wrote that Unicoin should face scrutiny from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Unicoin describes that comment as evidence of personal hostility. Uniswap has not yet responded to that allegation in the case.
The SEC subsequently brought its own action against Unicoin. As previously reported by crypto.news, the regulator sued the company and several executives in May 2025, alleging that they raised more than $100m through misleading and unregistered securities offerings. Unicoin chief executive Alex Konanykhin denied those allegations and said the company would contest the case.
Uniswap has also been involved in separate litigation and regulatory disputes. In March, a federal judge dismissed a class action seeking to hold Uniswap Labs responsible for alleged scam tokens and rug pulls traded through its protocol. Judge Katherine Polk Failla dismissed the remaining claims with prejudice after earlier federal securities claims had been rejected.
A separate intellectual-property case brought by entities linked to Bancor ended in Uniswap’s favour in February. The claim alleged that Uniswap had infringed patents covering technology used in automated decentralised trading, including the constant product automated market maker technology used by the protocol.
Uniswap had previously faced scrutiny from the SEC over allegations that it facilitated unregistered securities trading and operated as an unregistered broker-dealer. The agency ended its investigation in February 2025 without taking enforcement action.
