Mattel says it will appeal Scrabulous ruling

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Mattel, which owns the international rights to Scrabble, said today it would appeal last week’s court ruling in India that the Scrabulous online word game did not violate Mattel’s copyrights.

The court did, however, say Scrabulous infringed on the El Segundo toy company’s Scrabble trademark, handing both parties a mixed victory.

‘Clearly, we’re pleased with the trademark decision in India regarding Scrabulous,’ Mattel spokeswoman Julia Jensen said. ‘We disagree with the ruling on the copyright portion of the decision and plan to appeal.’

Jensen noted that the court’s jurisdiction does not reach outside India, although Mattel has so far filed suit only in that country.

Mattel first sued the creators of Scrabulous, Indian brothers Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, in February. Hasbro, which owns the rights to Scrabble in North America, filed its Scrabulous lawsuit in July, prompting the Agarwallas to remove their popular game from Facebook and replace it with a new version called Wordscraper.

Until recently, some players were still able to access the old version on a website called Scrabulous.com, which the brothers took down and replaced with a new site, Lexulous.com.

-- Alex Pham

Images courtesy of RJ Softwares