TRADEMARK OF THE WEEK – SCRABBLE

Scrabble is a word game in which two or four players score points by placing tiles bearing a single letter each onto a gameboard divided into a 15*15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns, must be included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.

Originally called Criss Cross, the game which was based on the crossword puzzle and anagrams, was developed by Alfred M. Butts, an architect in 1931. It was later redesigned, renamed as Scrabble and marketed by James Brunot in 1948. Scrabble was first sold in Great Britain 1954. The name “Scrabble” is a trademark of Mattel in most of the world, except in Canada and the United States, where it is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro made the official Scrabble game available through Facebook.

The trademark of “Scrabble” was registered in USPTO bearing registration number 0524505 on April 25, 1950.