Trademarks, Scrabble, Facebook, Scrabulous, Addiction, Withdrawal
It took Nadine and I about 20 minutes to create this Scrabulous masterpiece. Its combined worth is a mere 57… but really it’s priceless!
Since the Facebook Goldrush began last year, Scrabulous has become one of the top ten apps. No wonder. Nobody wants to play scrabble with you! Especially if you’re a sore winner!! The networked version.. playing against anybody was sure to be a hit. That’s what Jayant Agarwalla thought when he launched Scrabulous. The 21 year-old has 600,000 daily users – a sure hit. That gets everyone’s attention.Including Hasbro… the maker of the original board game.TechCruch reports that Hasbro served notice to Facebook to shut it down.
Three things are worth considering. First, are the rules of a board game considered intellectual property? (yes they are) Second, how long does the protection last. If Hasbro is claiming patent protection they’re out of luck. Trademark-wise, they could argue that Scrabulous is too much like Scrabble. If Hasbro goes with Copyright – the design of their board… it’s tenuous. Third, why didn’t Hasbro think of the obvious?? Why did it take this long to take action. I know a lot of Scrabble freaks that have rediscovered Scrabble online and are pulling out their board game version.
Effectively, Hasbro is only punishing it’s most ardent Scrabble fans because its chief-MBA-Lame-Ass didn’t catch on to the “online phenomena”.
I thought only Apple punished their customers for REALLY LOVING the product 
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