Facebook asked to remove "Scrabulous"

LONDON, UK: The makers of word game Scrabble have asked Facebook to remove its popular online version "Scrabulous," which they say infringes their copyright.

The US and Canada rights to Scrabble are owned by Hasbro Inc, the world's second-largest toy and game company, while the biggest, Mattel Inc, has the rest of the world.

"Letters have been sent to Facebook in the United States regarding the Scrabulous application," said a Mattel spokeswoman in Britain.

"Mattel values its intellectual property and actively protects its brands and trademarks.

"As Mattel owns the rights to the Scrabble trademark outside the United States and Canada, we are currently reviewing our position regarding other countries."

A UK spokesman for Facebook was not immediately available for comment.

Facebook has recently overtaken similar sites including MySpace and Bebo to become Britain's most popular social networking site.