The Indian brothers behind Scrabulous have claimed victory in
their battle with global game giants Hasbro and Mattel after an
Indian court ruled their game did not violate copyrights related to
Scrabble.
But the Delhi High Court forbade Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla from
using the Scrabulous or Scrabble names, rejecting the brothers'
claims that "Scrabble" was generic and therefore could not be
protected by trademark laws.
Shamnad Basheer, research associate at Oxford University's
Intellectual Property Research Centre, wrote on his blog that Justice S Ravindra Bhat
found that the Scrabble board game itself was "incapable of
copyright protection".
Facebook dumped Scrabulous, one of its most popular
applications, in August following a copyright complaint from
Mattel. But the brothers quickly launched a new game, Wordscraper,
which features gameplay almost identical to Scrabulous.
The new game now has more than 230,000 monthly active users but
the complaints from Mattel, which owns the international rights to
Scrabble, and Hasbro, which owns the North American rights, have
clearly eaten into the Agarwalla brothers' Facebook word game
dominance.
In its prime, Scrabulous, launched on Facebook in July last
year, had about 600,000 active users.
An official Scrabble Facebook application, launched amid the
controversy over Scrabulous, now has more than 500,000 active
users.
The non-Facebook version of Scrabulous at scrabulous.com has
been removed following the court ruling but a new almost identical
site was launched at lexulous.com.
"We thank all our fans for their love, blessings and kind words
of support," the brothers said in a statement.
"Here's a message for our fans: 'Folks! Take a deep breath,
relax and smile :) We are still here to share and spread happiness
with you through our little online games. With your support and
good wishes, we will continue to develop amazing games for you to
enjoy. Thank you!'"
By Asher Moses