Bancor, creator of a smart contract-based automated market maker, has sued Uniswap for patent infringement.
The lawsuit alleges that Uniswap has used Bancor's patented technology without permission and profited from it.
The lawsuit, announced on May 20, claims that Bancor developed the technology in 2016 and patented it in January 2017. The technology supports the "constant product automated market maker," which uses mathematical calculations to manage resources in a liquidity pool, resulting in two issued patents.
Bancor accuses Uniswap of using this invention to develop its protocol, which it launched in November 2018. Both entities are competitors within the decentralized finance industry (DeFi).