A trademark fight over three letters landed in federal court this week. TransparentBusiness Inc., which does business as Unicoin, sued Universal Navigation Inc., which does business as Uniswap Labs, in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, seeking declarations that its UNICOIN mark does not infringe or dilute Uniswap’s claimed marks, and asking the court to cancel the US trademark registration for UNI itself.
The suit is the escalation of a summer-long dispute conducted through lawyers’ letters. According to the complaint, Uniswap’s counsel sent three demand letters, on June 3, July 17 and August 14, accusing Unicoin of trademark infringement, dilution, cybersquatting and unfair competition, and threatening further legal action. The letters demanded that Unicoin stop using UNICOIN and other UNI-formative marks, transfer its unicoin.com and unicoin.org domains, provide an accounting of revenue and profits, and reimburse Uniswap’s legal fees.
Instead of capitulating, Unicoin ran to court first.
## What Unicoin wants from the court
The complaint asks for several things. First, a declaratory judgment that the UNICOIN mark does not infringe or dilute the UNI, UNISWAP and UNICHAIN marks that Uniswap claims. Second, cancellation of the US trademark registration for UNI. Third, a declaration that the unicoin.com and unicoin.org domains do not violate the federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.
The declaratory posture is notable. Rather than wait to be sued and defend, Unicoin has positioned itself as the plaintiff asking a court to draw the boundaries of Uniswap’s trademark rights. Winning cancellation of the UNI registration would be a dramatic result, since it would strip Uniswap of its federal registration for the ticker-like mark that covers its flagship token and much of its brand architecture.
Uniswap has not publicly responded to the suit. Cointelegraph reported approaching the company for comment. Whatever the response, the case will turn on familiar trademark questions applied to an unfamiliar industry: how distinctive is UNI, how similar are UNI and UNICOIN in the minds of crypto users, and does Uniswap’s claimed scope of protection extend to any word that begins with those three letters.
## Timing and stakes
The lawsuit was filed weeks before September 28, the public launch date Unicoin’s website lists for its UNCN token. That timing suggests Unicoin wanted legal clarity before putting its token in front of the market, rather than launching under the cloud of a threatened infringement suit. Getting a court to bless the mark first, or to narrow Uniswap’s, removes a risk that might otherwise have spooked launch participants.
For Uniswap, the stakes are mostly defensive but not trivial. The protocol remains the dominant decentralized exchange by volume. At the time the suit was filed, DeFiLlama ranked Uniswap first among DEXes by 24-hour volume, with more than 3.9 billion USD traded. Its brand is arguably its most valuable unregistered asset apart from the protocol itself, and its legal team has spent the summer policing the UNI prefix across domains and marks. A loss here would not touch the protocol’s code or liquidity, but it would weaken the perimeter the company has been trying to draw around its naming.
## Why this matters beyond the two companies
The case is a preview of a problem the crypto industry has barely begun to confront. Token tickers and protocol names have accumulated enormous commercial value, but trademark law was built for a world of distinct product categories and geographic markets. In crypto, two projects with similar names can coexist in the same global, always-on market, where a confused user can move funds in seconds. Courts will increasingly be asked to decide how much of that confusion the law should prevent.
It also illustrates the growing convergence of DeFi and conventional corporate legal strategy. Demand letters, domain transfer demands, accounting of profits, declaratory judgments, these are the standard weapons of consumer-brand litigation, now deployed between a restaking-adjacent token issuer and the largest decentralized exchange. As token launches become more like product launches, the legal rituals surrounding them look more like those of any consumer company.
The previous high-profile crypto trademark fights mostly involved non-crypto incumbents suing crypto projects over name similarity. An infrastructure protocol suing a token issuer over a three-letter prefix is a newer flavor, and the outcome will be read closely by every project that has built a brand on a short, vowel-heavy string of characters.
For Uniswap users and UNI holders, nothing changes in the near term. The protocol, the token and the app operate as before. What changes is the legal backdrop: the strongest name in decentralized trading now has an active challenge to one of its core marks, filed by a company that decided the best defense was a lawsuit.
Prices at the time of writing: BTC 78,500 USD, ETH 2,496 USD, SOL 104 USD.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency markets are volatile; always do your own research before investing.
uniswap sent three demand letters, wanted the domains, the revenue accounting AND the legal fees, then expected unicoin to just fold instead of running to court first. bold strategy
asking the court to cancel the UNI registration entirely is the aggressive part honestly. they did not just defend, they tried to wipe the trademark off the board
suing to cancel the UNI mark two weeks before your own UNCN launch is the most transparent timing ive ever seen. this is a marketing budget wearing a court filing
marketing budget or not, if the UNI registration actually gets cancelled every three-letter crypto mark gets shaky. that part is bigger than Unicoin
free press or not, demanding the domains AND a revenue accounting was never a serious opening offer. filing first in SDNY was the obvious counter
three demand letters from june to august clearly spooked them, so they filed first in SDNY to pick the venue. expensive chess move but it beats waiting to get sued
cheapest pre-launch marketing SDNY has processed is right. every crypto legal podcast is covering UNCN for free till sept 28
free podcast coverage cuts both ways. if the cancellation survives early motions, every UNCN sale after sept 28 becomes exhibit A for willfulness. that is a expensive marketing channel
UNCN launches Sept 28 and this filing guarantees the name gets argued about publicly for weeks before that. cheapest pre-launch marketing SDNY has ever processed
UNI vs UNICOIN. trademark fights over three shared letters while nobody at a glance confuses either ticker
Confusion stopped being the only test once dilution claims got easier. That is exactly what Uniswap leaned on in those letters.
dilution over three shared letters. at what point does uniswap just start invoicing every token that begins with UN
three shared letters is a whole genre now. wait till someone launches UNITE and argues its totally distinct lol
UNITE is inevitable honestly. someone will launch UNO, UNA and UNX within a year of whichever way this ruling lands
Invoicing every UN token is basically where dilution doctrine ends up if Uniswap wins this scope. The trademark office drew lines for a reason
Uniswap holds the live registration though. Declaratory judgments against a granted mark are an uphill fight, ask anyone who tried one
uphill fight yes, but filing first in SDNY forces Uniswap to defend the scope of UNI now instead of bleeding them with more demand letters
uphill for sure, but registrations have been cancelled before when the holder sat on the broader mark for years. uniswap did not sit though, they sent letters in june already
cancellation is rare but not unheard of. discovery into how Uniswap actually uses UNI in commerce could get uncomfortable fast
the domain transfer demand was the overreach. unicoin.com predates most of uniswap’s claimed commerce use by years, good luck arguing cybersquatting on that
the domain transfer demand was wild. unicoin.com predates most of the claimed commerce use by years, that reads like a settlement negotiation tactic
sept 28 UNCN launch during an active cancellation suit is a choice. every sale now becomes evidence of willful confusion if the ruling goes against them
willful infringement damages require proving UNI alone is famous, and that is the harder half of this suit. uniswap built the brand, but three letters is a stretch