• December 16, 2008

Hasbro Inc. has dropped its lawsuit against the creators of Scrabulous, an online version of the board game Scrabble previously available on Facebook.

According to documents filed in U.S. District Court in New York, Hasbro dropped the lawsuit Friday. The court documents did not specify a reason for the withdrawal of the case. Hasbro, which owns the North American rights to the word game, sued Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, brothers from Calcutta, India, this summer. The brothers developed the unauthorized version after they were unable to find an online version they liked.

RJ Softwares, the Agarwalla brothers' company, said in a statement that it has agreed not to use the term "Scrabulous," and has made changes to different versions of the game it created after the lawsuit was filed.

Mattel, which owns the rights to Scrabble outside of North America, filed a lawsuit against the brothers in India claiming violations of intellectual property. It is not clear what the status of that lawsuit is. --Tanya Irwin