Creators of Scrabble knockoff on Facebook sued

Hasbro Inc., the company that owns the word game's North American rights, sued the creators of the Scrabulous program on Thursday, less than two weeks after the release of an authorized version of Scrabble for Facebook.

Hasbro said in its lawsuit that Scrabulous violates its copyright and trademarks. Separately, Hasbro asked Facebook to block the game.

In the year since Facebook began letting outside developers write Web programs that Facebook members can plug into their personal profile pages, Scrabulous has attracted some half-million daily users, despite efforts by Scrabble's owners to end it.

Video game maker Electronic Arts Inc. released an official version for American and Canadian Facebook users last week as part of a broader, year-old licensing deal with Hasbro, yet Facebook users have continued to spend countless hours on the unauthorized Scrabulous.

Now, Hasbro is trying to stop Scrabulous completely and collect unspecified damages.

Mark Blecher, general manager for digital media and gaming at Hasbro, said the Pawtucket, R.I.-based company waited until Thursday to file a lawsuit to ensure that Scrabble fans had a legal option first.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, named as defendants Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the brothers in Calcutta, India, who created the program, along with their Web design and technology company, RJ Softwares.

The Agarwallas did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment made after business hours in India. A 24-hour number for RJ Softwares went unanswered Thursday.

Facebook, which was not named as a defendant, refused to immediately block the application, pending a response from Scrabulous' creators.