Makers of 'Scrabble' Want Popular 'Scrabulous' Removed From Facebook
Earlier this week, Facebook was forced to create "extended" profiles thanks to the inundation of random apps/widgets that users of the site has been suffering from lately. We find many of these apps to be little more than nagware, but there are a few gems, chief among them 'Scrabulous,' a multiplayer online version of 'Scrabble' you can play right from your Facebook account. Now, as if you needed more proof that we live in a time in which stuffy lawyers don't dig the digital age, take a look at this: It looks like toy-makers Hasbro and Mattel have sent their legal goons to Facebook and demanded that it remove the immensely popular 'Scrabulous' from its site. Hasbro and Mattel share the 'Scrabble' trademark in the U.S. and internationally, and so, of course, want to defend it, and the name 'Scrabulous' certainly does bear more than a passing resemblance to that of 'Scrabble.' Plus, there's the whole yellow tiles spelling words thing that 'Scrabulous' also uses. 'Scrabulous' is one of the most popular apps on Facebook, so it's no surprise that its possible removal has naturally resulted in a "Save Scrabulous" group and plenty of uproar from fans.
Let's hope it works, but sadly, these sorts of anti-trademark protests usually do little to discourage the stodgy and generally boring legal process. Something tells us these fans may end up having to play 'Scrabble' on Facebook in the not-to-distant future.
From BBC News
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TOM @ Jan 17th 2008 10:37AM
IM FIRST?
NO COMMENT!
SKW @ Jan 17th 2008 11:59AM
Man, I don't add any applications to my Facebook. They're so annoying! Especially the ones where you have to invite x number of friends to see your results for a quiz. I get bombarded by people who don't care.
DAD @ Jan 17th 2008 12:03PM
Hasbro & Mattel obviously need to come up with their own app or buy this one and life goes on.
MarxHarpo1965 @ Jan 17th 2008 12:27PM
why removed it .... i love this game in facebook worthy to have fun there ... I dont understand you all !
Devlyn @ Jan 17th 2008 12:29PM
Hmmmmmm I guess they dont want anything out there that cant do any damage to people /kids was not made in china, full of lead or GBH . Intersting !
Irene @ Jan 17th 2008 1:39PM
I have been playing Scrabble directly on scrabulous.com (NOT via Facebook) for two years or more. Unless Hasbro is going after the original Web site, I don't see the problem.
Are they???
Irene
Anon @ Jan 17th 2008 2:37PM
If Scrabble owns Scrabulous (which I believe they do), then Facebook has to pay to have it on their site. Case closed.
Jon @ Jan 17th 2008 6:04PM
In response to your comment that "we live in a time in which stuffy lawyers don't dig the digital age": First, don't bash the lawyers, they're just doing their job. If you think the suit is without merit, then bash Hasbro and Mattell. Second, I find it shocking anyone, especially a writer for an online blog, would be offended at the thought of the two companies suing for this. What if I took your article and used it as my own? Wouldn't you be a little ticked? Finally, if you're going to criticize someone, criticize the "makers" of the "Scrabulous", they are the ones who have stolen someone else's property.
Betty @ Jan 17th 2008 6:40PM
Hasbro used to let us play SCRABBle on games.com but no more. Thousands of people played the game. Lots of fun. Give it back to us Hasbro.
Daniel Gaunt @ Jan 18th 2008 8:09AM
I'd never heard of this app until now so added it to see what it's like, and it is a scrabble clone, they don't even try to make it differant ok the makers of scrabble may already be rich but this is theft, they should have at least asked permission. hopefully pacman will be back one day, or I could just make my own pacman game, not too hard!
Nero Bossa @ Feb 4th 2008 4:35PM
As far as I've read, from a legal standpoint, there is no patent or trademark on the Scrabble game itself, just the name ('Scrabble'). IE the style of game play and rules are completely unprotected since it went into the public domain in the 1950's, was never patented, and so on.
The only patent issued to Scrabble related to how the grid could reflect the score value of 'multiplier' tiles when those tiles were covered by game chips (see US Patent#2,752,158, which EXPIRED in the 1970s). It was a very specific invention by which little triangular bits extended past the edges of the tile, the number of which related to the tiles value (2 bits = 2x multiplier, 3 bits = 3x, etc.). Since it was/is expired using this concept in a tile game or Scrabble-alike would not be in violation of anybody's rights.
The game won't go anywhere, and the game was not 'stolen' from the current trademark owners any more than they 'stole' it in the first place - they bought the rights to the NAME 'Scrabble' not to the game design itself. Making a 'Scrabble' style game, even 100% based on the original rules violates no patent.
The only thing Scrabulous may have to do is change the name, and that is even silly considering "Scrabulous" isn't "Scrabble", so the current trademark owners would have to argue that their trademark extends to names derived from the syllables of the word "Scrabble". Considering the application is already popular a name change would do little to harm its permutation.
The big win here for said 'trademark owner' might be to consider approaching the vendor who makes the widget (not facebook - they don't have any real responsibility for the content of a widget built by a third party on an open publishing system any more than an ISP or search engine does)... and asking them to work out something mutually acceptable. I'm sure a link to buy various hardcopy versions of the 'real' game off Amazon would generate them actual revenue vs. a bunch of money lost fighting a frivolous lawsuit, and it would be little nuisance to people playing the facebook game.