U.S. toymaker sues Indian brothers
New York: U.S. toymaker Hasbro has filed a suit in federal court against RJ Softwares, a Kolkata-based company owned by Rajat Agarwalla and his brother Jayant Agarwalla, for creating an online word game on Facebook networking website by copying its product Scrabble.
The suit, which accuses the brothers of 'blatant infringement' of its intellectual property, seeks unspecified damages along with a court order barring RJ Softwares from using the name 'Scrabulous' for their game.
Hasbro also sent a copyright notice to Facebook, demanding that it remove Scrabulous from its site. Scrabulous is one of the most popular activities on Facebook after its launch in 2006 and is believed to have over 2.5 million registered users.
"We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual property, and we are pursuing this legal action in accordance with the interests of our shareholders, and the integrity of the Scrabble brand," Hasbro's General Counsel Barry Nagler said.
Hasbro owns the rights to Scrabble in North America, and Mattel, which owns the rights elsewhere. The company had earlier sent cease-and-desist letters to the Agarwalla brothers but the siblings issued a statement vowing to keep the application live.
Facebook said it was disappointed with Hasbro's move. "We're disappointed that Hasbro has sought to draw us into their dispute. However, we have forwarded their concerns to Scrabulous and requested their appropriate response."
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siliconindia news bureau
Reader’s comments
Comment 1: Though I am not sure who-did-wot but cases like these utterly proves that we Indians are making our foot prints stronger with every passing day in the domain of IT and computer gaming.And a case like this show how scared they are about the strength of indian intellect.
Posted by : Vivek - Monday, July 28, 2008
Posted by : Vivek - Monday, July 28, 2008
Comment 2: This is like stretching the copyright and IPR too much, tomorrow these guys will say they have a copyright on the words "scrabby" "scramble" etc as most of the letters from the word scrabble are included in this :).
The whole concept of IPR should be considered in context of the appropriate medium.
They had a far better way to handle this by buying the poroduct from the agrawal brothers, but maybe the "desis' were too tough with them in negotiations :)
haha
Three cheers to the Agrawal brothers.
Posted by : Upendra Watwe - Monday, July 28, 2008
The whole concept of IPR should be considered in context of the appropriate medium.
They had a far better way to handle this by buying the poroduct from the agrawal brothers, but maybe the "desis' were too tough with them in negotiations :)
haha
Three cheers to the Agrawal brothers.
Posted by : Upendra Watwe - Monday, July 28, 2008
Comment 3: How intellectual is this intellectual property? really!!!
From the 1938 game called called Lexiko and Criss-Crosswords to 1952 when Jack Strauss, president of Macy's departmental store promoted the game, to Coleco, Scrabble has changed hands a lot.
AFAIK, nobody owns the electronic rights, and for Hasbro -- a non intellectual company -- to assert intellectual property rights on something they did not create and cannot imagine, shows how low they will stoop for money.
Posted by : Ram Rao - Monday, July 28, 2008
From the 1938 game called called Lexiko and Criss-Crosswords to 1952 when Jack Strauss, president of Macy's departmental store promoted the game, to Coleco, Scrabble has changed hands a lot.
AFAIK, nobody owns the electronic rights, and for Hasbro -- a non intellectual company -- to assert intellectual property rights on something they did not create and cannot imagine, shows how low they will stoop for money.
Posted by : Ram Rao - Monday, July 28, 2008
Comment 4: I used to play the board game as a kid and after joining Facebook, I was delightd to see such a wonderful application available online. I am deeply attached to the game now and I play on a daily basis. I dont care about the IPR issues, I just hope the application is not discontinued.
Raj Kiran
Posted by : Raj Kiran - Monday, July 28, 2008
Raj Kiran
Posted by : Raj Kiran - Monday, July 28, 2008
Comment 5: If the US Hasbro were in the place of indian brothers, would the indians been able to sue these Americans ? IT because india has always made america sit on its head.
Posted by : MasterMind - Monday, July 28, 2008
Posted by : MasterMind - Monday, July 28, 2008
Comment 6: Whatever RJ Software had done is pretty shameful. It is the corruption of the country that is getting reflected in the IT industry too
Posted by : Piyal Gupta - Sunday, July 27, 2008
Posted by : Piyal Gupta - Sunday, July 27, 2008
Comment 7: Some folks in the board have already concluded that the indian firm has infringed. One should also keep in mind that US is a country of law-suits. Now that the economy is in doldrums, they are desperate to make money from anywhere.
Posted by : Satish - Friday, July 25, 2008
Posted by : Satish - Friday, July 25, 2008
Comment 8: Without even knowing case details & infringement laws, looks like people decided, confirmed (if possible may give judgment too) that Indian firm is a cheating firm. It is so easy to sway people's opinion. Because our society is full of such innocent people. That is the reason old wise adage translated verbatim into english "lies spread instantaneously, while truth will be revealed only over time"
I have no connection to Indian firm except I am an Indian. I couldn't resist responding to those two comments posted who confirmed that Indian firm is a cheater.
Posted by : Krishna - Friday, July 25, 2008
I have no connection to Indian firm except I am an Indian. I couldn't resist responding to those two comments posted who confirmed that Indian firm is a cheater.
Posted by : Krishna - Friday, July 25, 2008
Comment 9: If Hasbro were smart about it, they would have made scrabulous first. Hasbro happened to be slow on the draw, and now they're complaining because they're butthurt.
Best option for them would be to actually hire the brothers to program/continue development of the application not only on facebook, but other social networking sites as well.
Just my two cents.
Posted by : Erick - Friday, July 25, 2008
Best option for them would be to actually hire the brothers to program/continue development of the application not only on facebook, but other social networking sites as well.
Just my two cents.
Posted by : Erick - Friday, July 25, 2008
Comment 10: i find the situtaion very funny.. an infringed appliaction getting more famous than the originally developed application.. even though the indian guys have cheated i still find what they did commendable.. the US guys should take lessons from them in marketing their product...
Posted by : namrata - Friday, July 25, 2008
Posted by : namrata - Friday, July 25, 2008
Comment 11: This again proves that Indians are smart in copying things
Posted by : Vanu - Friday, July 25, 2008
Posted by : Vanu - Friday, July 25, 2008
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