Many of you may have heard of the Facebook application called Scrabulous. The board and the rules are clearly a trademark violation of Hasbro’s U.S. rights and Mattel’s worldwide rights.
However, Scrabulous was trademarked last year by an Australian company entitled Imagination Holdings, which must have cut some sort of deal with the Agarwalla brothers. (Btw, here’s Jayant Agarwalla’s page on AllExperts.com where he offers expert advice on Scrabble. It’s not known if his knowledge applies to intellectual property law though.)
It appears that they are attempting to have the Scrabulous name refer to all sorts of electronic and online gaming. An interesting strategy and we’ll just have to wait and see how it all plays out.
It should be noted that the: Current Status: A non-final action has been mailed. This is a letter from the examining attorney requesting additional information and/or making an initial refusal. However, no final determination as to the registrability of the mark has been made.
For those who enjoy “Intellectual Property” history, here are the 1948 and 2007 trademark filings of the two competing factions from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: (The 1947 one is by the original maker of Scrabble before Selchow and Righter ,and then later, Hasbro obtained the rights.
| Word Mark | SCRABBLE |
| Goods and Services | IC 028. US 022. G & S: [ GAME INCLUDING BOARD AND PLAYING PIECES ] * EQUIPMENT AND ACCESSORIES FOR PLAYING A BOARD GAME *. FIRST USE: 19481201. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19481201 |
| Mark Drawing Code | (5) WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM |
| Serial Number | 71570633 |
| Filing Date | December 16, 1948 |
| Current Filing Basis | 1A |
| Original Filing Basis | 1A |
| Registration Number | 0524505 |
| Registration Date | April 25, 1950 |
| Owner | (REGISTRANT) PRODUCTION AND MARKETING CORPORATION, THE CORPORATION CONNECTICUT R. F. D. NO. 1 NEWTOWN CONNECTICUT(LAST LISTED OWNER) HASBRO, INC. CORPORATION BY ASSIGNMENT, BY ASSIGNMENT, BY ASSIGNMENT, BY ASSIGNMENT, BY ASSIGNMENT, BY MERGER RHODE ISLAND 1027 NEWPORT AVENUE PAWTUCKET RHODE ISLAND 02862 |
| Assignment Recorded | ASSIGNMENT RECORDED |
| Type of Mark | TRADEMARK |
| Register | PRINCIPAL |
| Affidavit Text | SECT 15. SECTION 8(10-YR) 20001120. |
| Renewal | 3RD RENEWAL 20001120 |
| Live/Dead Indicator | LIVE |
| Word Mark | SCRABULOUS |
| Goods and Services | IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Production of television and radio programs; television and radio entertainment services, namely, an ongoing television game show and an ongoing radio game show; production of television game show programs and radio entertainment programsIC 028. US 022 023 038 050. G & S: Toys, playthings and games, namely, board games, party games and parlour games and equipment sold as a unit for playing such games; interactive games, namely board games, card games that may be played via a DVD machine, computer and television or computer monitor and equipment sold as a unit for playing board games and card games, in International Class 28 |
| Standard Characters Claimed | |
| Mark Drawing Code | (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK |
| Serial Number | 77304811 |
| Filing Date | October 16, 2007 |
| Current Filing Basis | 1B |
| Original Filing Basis | 1B |
| Owner | (APPLICANT) Imagination Holdings Pty Ltd CORPORATION AUSTRALIA 64 North Tce Kent Town AUSTRALIA 5067 |
| Type of Mark | TRADEMARK. SERVICE MARK |
| Register | PRINCIPAL |
| Live/Dead Indicator | LIVE |
I’m definitely not an expert on intellectual property, but the initial registration is only for a board game. Does that cover online games as well?
There are 30 trademarks referring to the term Scrabble and they cover just about everything. I only included the first one just for the history of it.
It is an interesting concept. I’m sure that corporations the size of Matel are more than capable of putting a stop to things like Scrabulous if they are indeed in violation of trademarks, etc. By the same token, I’m sure that a company such as Imagination Holding would have done their due diligence before releasing a product that may be in violation.
Based on this my verdict is that it must simply be ok, otherwise by now it wouldn’t exist.
Update, Scrabble and Scrabulous are now on FaceBook, and they are eerily similar. US fans will find it easier to use the Scrabble app because it is exacatly like the board game. The concept is the same, I’m sure Hasbro just got tired of the headache.
Scrabulous has many more online users than Scrabble does, at least so far for July. But this game has just begun, and there’s no reason that Scrabble’s official online app–the developers of which don’t have to worry about getting sued out of existence–can’t surpass Scrabulous on the Web in general. Although Scrabulous could maintain its lead in the Facebook universe for a time, the world of social gaming goes beyond just that one platform, and Hasbro/EA could (and should) push its new, fully legal online game out to social networks all over the Internet.