Data analytics dispute: Splunk files lawsuit against Cribl

Today data platform Splunk announced that it filed a lawsuit against Cribl, a company founded by some former Splunk employees, alleging patent infringement, copyright infringement, unfair competition, and other claims.

Claims of this nature, where former employees are alleged to have misappropriated confidential information and source code and then used it to compete with their former employer are not uncommon. In the UK, we have seen these sort of claims made in various sectors, including data analytics, but it doesn’t really matter what the sector is if the information in question has commercial value. 

One of the key challenges for Splunk will be to demonstrate that their source code has actually been taken and used by Cribl.

Cribl has publicly denied the allegations and so expert forensic analysis may be needed to determine the extent - if any - to which Cribl has utilised Splunk's confidential information and source code so that a judge can determine whether its IP has been infringed. While it is open to developers to write computer programs that reproduce the same or similar functionality to existing programs in the marketplace, use of another's source code to do so presents a copyright infringement risk (even if that use is inadvertent).  

Whichever way the dispute is decided - assuming it is not settled - it is likely to depend heavily upon the particular facts of the case, which makes it difficult to predict the outcome and how it might affect similar claims made in the future.