Digital Resilience Pays Off
Download this e-book to learn about the role of Digital Resilience across enterprises.
Splunk was founded on the principle of removing barriers between data and action, and one of the company’s primary goals is to empower Splunk’s customers and partners to transform their organizations with data. As a responsible and ethical company, we take very seriously our responsibility to protect our intellectual property while also respecting the intellectual property rights of others.
Today, we filed an intellectual property infringement and unfair competition lawsuit against Cribl for, among other things, misappropriating and misusing Splunk source code and confidential technical and business documents, as well as willfully infringing other Splunk intellectual property. You can find a press release about the case here.
Our complaint asserts that Cribl illegitimately built its business through the misappropriation and unlawful use of Splunk’s proprietary intellectual property. Since Cribl launched its first product, developed using code that was unlawfully taken from Splunk, Cribl has engaged in a calculated campaign to undermine Splunk and compete unfairly against us in the market. As described in our complaint, Cribl has also improperly solicited important technical and business documents from departing Splunk employees and then used those documents to further develop its software and interfere with our customer relationships. Mr. Sharp actively participated in this effort, recruiting Splunk employees to join Cribl and encouraging them to bring Splunk confidential material with them. In addition, Cribl has used Splunk’s copyrighted software in conjunction with its software development work and marketing, despite having no license to do so. The software that Cribl markets to its customers infringes numerous Splunk patents, despite Cribl’s awareness of our patents.
We are not a litigious company by nature, and we did not take this action lightly. We first attempted to resolve our issues with Cribl privately. Unfortunately, Cribl’s refusal to act ethically, its willful disregard of intellectual property rights, and its coordinated campaign of misappropriation left Splunk no choice but to file a lawsuit as a last resort to right a wrong and protect the intellectual property that our customers rely on every day to manage their most critical security and observability needs.
This case is about Cribl’s misconduct. Splunk is not changing how it works with customers and partners, and looks forward to continuing to help them leverage Splunk to drive great insights and effective results. While we have asked the Court to require Cribl to stop using Splunk’s intellectual property and to fairly compensate Splunk, we have not asked the Court to shut Cribl down nor are we blocking interoperability with Cribl.
Splunk has long been a pioneer and leader in the data platform industry, as evidenced by the well over 1,000 U.S. patents we have been granted. Our foundational innovations define Splunk’s reputation and brand, and we remain committed to taking the appropriate and necessary steps to protect them for the benefit of all our stakeholders.
1. What was announced?
2. What is Splunk’s relationship with Cribl? With Clint Sharp?
3. What can customers and partners expect while this is being litigated? To what extent will this litigation impact the business and the products/services Splunk offers?
4. What happens next?
5. Where can I find additional information?
The Splunk platform removes the barriers between data and action, empowering observability, IT and security teams to ensure their organizations are secure, resilient and innovative.
Founded in 2003, Splunk is a global company — with over 7,500 employees, Splunkers have received over 1,020 patents to date and availability in 21 regions around the world — and offers an open, extensible data platform that supports shared data across any environment so that all teams in an organization can get end-to-end visibility, with context, for every interaction and business process. Build a strong data foundation with Splunk.