Scrabulous makers score a mixed ruling
FROM OUR BLOGS
The Indian brothers who created the Scrabble-style game for Facebook say their country's courts consider the name -- but not the game -- a trademark violation.
Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the Indian brothers who came up with the Scrabble-style word game for Facebook called Scrabulous, told fans that their country's courts ruled that their game did not violate Mattel Inc.'s copyrights.
It did, however, consider the name Scrabulous a trademark violation and ordered the Agarwallas to stop using the word, the brothers said.
"We will take a call on whether we will appeal against the decision on the trademark after consulting our legal advisors," the Agarwallas wrote in an e-mail to fans. Bottom line: The Indian court believes that the Scrabulous game is legally in the clear; it's just that it can't be called that.
Mattel, which owns the international rights to Scrabble, in February sued the Agarwallas in Indian court.
Hasbro, the owner of Scrabble in North America, followed suit in July. Several days later, the Agarwallas pulled the application from Facebook and put up Wordscraper, a similar game that lets players modify their own board.
Mattel, based in El Segundo, did not return calls requesting comment.
Google opposes gay marriage ban
Google has taken the unusual step of publicly opposing Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage in California.
Same-sex marriage became legal in California in June after the state Supreme Court ruled a ban was unconstitutional, setting the stage for the ballot proposal.
Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, acknowledged in a blog post that it was an "unlikely question" for Google to take a stand on. But for Google, he said, it became an "issue of equality."
"However, while there are many objections to this proposition -- further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text -- it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8.
"While we respect the strongly held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love."
Another company that has publicly opposed Proposition 8 is San Francisco's Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
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Jessica Guynn
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