India bans Scrabulous
By Techgirl

So what happened to the Agarwala brothers after Toy maker Hasbro (who own the rights for Scrabble in US and Canada) got them evicted from Facebook? 

The next battle was fought between Mattel (who own the Scrabble rights in the rest of the world) and Agarwala brothers at the Delhi High Court.  Mattel wanted the Delhi High Court to ask the Bengal-based brothers to stop using Scrabulous in any shape or form.

The Agarwala brothers had launched a Scrabble like game WordScraper after Facebook banned Scrabulous.

India’s leading IP blog is reporting that the Delhi High Court has given judgment in the Scrabble Vs Scrabulous matter.  The Delhi High Court has directed that the Agarwala brothers were restrained from using Scrabulous, Scrabble or any other deceptively similar trademark.  The brothers cannot even hyperlink to Scrabble.  But the court ruled that Mattel did not have a copyright to their famous board game Scrabble.

The full judgment and what it means can be read at SpicyIP.

(Techgoss had run the following article on July 30, 2008)

Brothers leave Facebook
By Techgirl

Late last week, I had reported on how American company Hasbro, owners of the Scrabble board game, was suing two brothers from Calcutta for stealing their idea.  The brothers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, had developed the software for their game ‘Scrabulous’ as a clone of the board game.  While the brothers were earning bindaas money from their game, it was at the cost of revenue to Hasbro.  Scrabulous was always popular but reached new heights when it was configured to work as an application with the world’s most popular social networking website Facebook.

Now that Hasbro has an authorized game up and running in Facebook, it was time to play hard ball with the Indians.  The court action in USA has worked in their favour with the brothers from Calcutta withdrawing their popular game from Facebook USA and Canada.  Hasbro is pursuing them in Indian courts as well.

In true Bollywood style, the brothers are putting up a brave front.  Yesterday,  they told media: "We sincerely hope to bring to our fans brighter news in the days to come."

Facebook, in its own interests, tried to keep a neutral position till the end.  The brothers were bringing in huge traffic and so it would not be prudent to poke them away.

How much money did the brothers earn from Facebook?  No one has the real figures.  The brothers told the prestigious ‘New York Times’ in March, 2008 they were making $25,000 a month.  The same newspapers said that they two brothers wanted to sell their unauthorized (illegal) Scrabulous to the rightful owner for tens of millions of dollars.  Hasbro broke off talks.

What is a bit puzzling is that the same brothers were telling American media last year that they were just making just enough to “cover their hosting costs”.  Many startups quote different dollar figures at different times to attract venture capital.

There are some certainties in this case.  Hasbro, as the owners, should have developed an internet version of their game much earlier. Hasbro will win in court.  And the brothers should not have pressed their luck too much.  They should have happily accepted the first reasonable offer from Hasbro.  If Hasbro decides to pursue more vicious legal action, the brothers could lose all their profits and more.

Having said all this, there is still a chance that as the media speculates on the outcome, lawyers from both parties are working out a deal.  Majority of such cases are worked out between the parties themselves.   At the end business is mainly about making moolah.

(Techgoss had published the following article on July 25, 2008)

Techie brothers sued
By Techgirl

First there was only American company Hasbro making millions selling their wonderful Scrabble board game. 100 million board games sold and counting.

Then came the internet and soon there were a number of unofficial (illegal?) pale imitations of Scrabble on the internet.  One such Scrabble imitator on the net was Quadplex.  Quadplex was growing popular and soon two brothers from Calcutta, India Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla started playing it.

Even though Quadplex did not have a license from Hasbro it started charging members to play it.

Rajat and Jayant were not interested in paying for membership and decided to leave Quadplex and develop their own game ‘Scrabulous’. 

Hasbro, the real owner of Scrabble, kept looking the other way. Hubris, bad management or too difficult to fight to prosecute a case in India. 

Scrabulous, developed by Rajat and Jayant, was a great success with hundreds of thousands of users signing up.  The brothers decided to push their luck further by customizing their software in 2007 to run on Facebook.  More success with hundreds of thousands of players every day.  The advertising from Facebook alone is worth tens of thousands of dollars every month.

Hasbro was hurt and huffed and puffed at the brothers from Bengal.  Hasbro developed their own software for Facebook with limited success.  Scrabulous was better.  The brothers sat quietly letting the dollars come in.   Like all legal cases, there was talk of compromise, but it never came to anything.

Facebook has always looked the other way.  Why should they care when it was driving so much traffic to their website?

Finally, Hasbro has moved and sued the brothers in a New York court yesterday.  Hasbro may have a strong legal case, but it has to move carefully as Scrabulous (even if it is not strictly legal) has a cult following.

Hasbro has gone on public relations campaign telling news media that it was only “protecting its intellectual property”.  The brothers from Calcutta, who run a software company, are keeping mum and refusing to talk to the media.  Facebook always had few words for the media and is only saying: “We do not comment on legal cases”.  Facebook has never been social with the media.

The case would be interesting in many ways.  American police can only enforce an American court decision if the brothers have assets in USA.  Indian courts have a more lenient view of internet game clones than their counterparts in USA. To make it a bit more complicated apparently anyone can use the rules of the game but the design has to be different.

There are some certainties in this case one being Scrabulous is great software and hugely popular.  There is talk that it is played by 500 thousand Facebook users every day, but only Facebook has the facts to verify its popularity.  There are news reports that the Indian brothers are making more than $25,000 a month, but the brothers have been coy about the exact figure.

Another certainty is that like all good Indian software companies the brothers would be declaring their real income to the Indian tax authorities.  Perhaps I should rephrase this.  I am a Scrabble addict but seem to be at a loss for words on this point

The final certainty is that whatever the court outcome, both the brothers will have enough money left for another three generations.  And have had lots of fun along they way. The game is an imitation but the money is real.

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog
http://techgirltalk.blogspot.com