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


The U.S. 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.

(Reporting by Andrew Hough; Editing by Stephen Addison)