Last night, SerpApi filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas against Zilvinas Kucinskas and his company, SearchApi, for systematically stealing SerpApi’s proprietary technology and using its trade secrets to build a product that directly copies and competes with SerpApi.

As detailed in our complaint, Mr. Kucinskas, a former software engineering contractor for SerpApi, exploited his access to SerpApi’s proprietary information to pilfer the company’s intellectual property. The evidence is damning: Mr. Kucinskas improperly retained SerpApi’s source code, and he repeatedly accessed SerpApi servers after stopping work for SerpApi in 2021. Even more egregiously, just 11 days before leaving SerpApi, he downloaded SerpApi’s proprietary customer list.  Mr. Kucinskas not only stole all this information, he used it to start a copycat company, SearchApi.

Mr. Kucinskas tried to cover his tracks, but we uncovered his scheme. When confronted, he stonewalled our investigation and feigned ignorance. He refused to cooperate despite multiple attempts to resolve this matter directly. His conduct left us no choice but to file suit. We’ve only touched on the facts at a high-level here. Our complaint lays out the evidence in detail, supported by a forensic expert’s sworn declaration.

We invested tens of millions of dollars and nearly a decade of work building a solution that gives our customers structured access to public data at enterprise scale. Mr. Kucinskas spent a few months stealing it. We filed this suit to protect that investment, to protect our customers, and to hold him accountable. This action is also part of our broader commitment to reinforcing the security and trust our customers rely on.

In the interest of transparency, we are making the full complaint, the forensic expert's declaration, and all supporting exhibits available below:

Questions? Contact press@serpapi.com.