Facebook asked by Mattel to remove 'Scrabulous'

Posted on ZDNet News: Jan 16, 2008 6:38:00 AM

The makers of Scrabble have asked Facebook to remove a popular online version of the word game, Scrabulous, which they say infringes their copyright.

The U.S. and Canada rights to Scrabble are owned by Hasbro, the world's second-largest toy and game company, while the biggest, Mattel, has rights to the game in the rest of the world.

"Letters have been sent to Facebook in the United States regarding the Scrabulous application," a Mattel representative in Britain said. "Mattel values its intellectual property and actively protects its brands and trademarks. As Mattel owns the rights to the Scrabble trademark outside the United States and Canada, we are currently reviewing our position regarding other countries."

A U.K. representative for Facebook was not immediately available for comment.

Facebook has recently overtaken similar sites, including MySpace.com and Bebo, to become Britain's most popular social-networking site.

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