Facebook has blocked the access of the word game ‘Scrabulous‘ for users in North America in July following a lawsuit.The online game which resembles ‘scrabble‘ got blocked after Hasbro sued ‘Scrabulous‘ owners Rajat Agarwalla and Jayant Agarwalla along with their offshore software and Web services company.

It filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York alleging that ‘Scrabulous‘ is guilty of infringement of its Intellectual Property Rights in as much as ‘Scrabulous‘ uses all the elements of the board game. Hasbro owns the patent rights to ‘Scrabble‘ in North America and it licenses the digital rights for Scrabble to Electronic Arts, which released the official online version of ‘scrabble‘ on Facebook last week.Hasbro is seeking damages, legal costs, and prohibition of the online game.

‘Scrabulous‘ was a widely played online word game in facebook and its daily active users were estimated to be 509,505 in number. Mattel, which owns the rights to ‘Scrabble‘ outside the North America also put forward a takedown request following which Facebook blocked the access of Scrabulous for users across the globe last week. However,Indian users can still access the application till the Indian court resolves the case filed by Mattel for the violation of Intellectual Property Rights by the Agarwalla company.