Pawtucket, R.I. - Toymaker Hasbro (NYSE: HAS) has taken its previous demands a step further and today filed a copyright infringement suit against the makers of "Scrabulous," a knock-off version of its "Scrabble" board game that counts over 510,000 daily active users on Facebook.

The company also served Facebook a notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, asking the social network to remove the game from its sites in the U.S. and Canada as soon as possible.

The lawsuit names Scrabulous creators Rajat Agarwalla and Jayant Agarwalla, and their company RJ Softwares, and seeks unspecified damages.

The Scrabulous creators told Fortune.com in February that the game was drawing ad revenues of over $25,000 a month.

Earlier this month, Hasbro launched an official online version of "Scrabble," developed by Electronic Arts, which is also available on Facebook.

"We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our SCRABBLE intellectual property, and we are pursuing this legal action in accordance with the interests of our shareholders, and the integrity of the SCRABBLE brand," said Barry Nagler, Hasbro's general counsel.

Hasbro told the Associated Press that it waited to file suit against the makers of Scrabulous until there was a legitimate version available for players.

Related Links:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080724/20080724005915.html?.v=1

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080724/facebook_scrabble.html (AP)

http://snipurl.com/34h3s (DMW previous coverage)

http://snipurl.com/34h3z (DMW previous coverage)

http://www.scrabulous.com