it is very hard to believe that that toymakers have any copyright protection on the idea of Scrabble as a game. Copyright protection only protects the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves.
If anything they have trademark protection for the name Scrabble, which can be easily avoided by changing the name so that it is not confusingly similar to Scrabble.

What will laywers do if they can't play scrabulous while billing thier clients?

forget this useless stuff. A buddy of mine has been laid-off from Latham in LA. He told me he was let go b/c his performance was not upto par - we all know what that means. He said some of his co-workers have also met a similar fate. Anyone hearing anything about Latham's other offices??? I know for a fact that work has been very, very slow in Latham's LA office...Looks like the big west coast firms are really struggling...

They'd likely have to change the board as well so that it wasn't exactly like Scrabble. See Yahoo! Games, Literati.

Noooo! How I love this app! It's the one thing that gets me to log on to Facebook on a regular basis.
Damn them for inadvertently trying to increase my productivity...

12:46, how many hours did he bill?

Didn't ATL already cover Latham layoffs? (And get bitched at by people who said there were no layoffs going on?)

Haha, I always spell Qi on scrabulous too. Pretty sure its a bullshit word.

12:39 - You are right, but I imagine the copyright applies to the particular layout of the board (e.g., where the triple word scores are, etc.)

This is terrible! I love scrabulous! Please do continue to follow this. Maybe Facebook should offer to pay them something.

Qi is not a bullshit word. It's what meditation harnesses. I think. Whatever, I got away with using the word "quinn".

There's a story going around about a summer associate that punched some lawyer in a bar. Does anyone have any details?

Why isn't a story like this on ATL?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_re_us/craig_appeal_1

You have the details wrong, the summer associate said something rude to another bar patron, who then proceeded to deck him in the face. Needless to say he will not be working for that firm next year.

How is this a copyright issue? You can't copyright a name or a process. I could see this being a patent of trademark issue - but I just don't see a copyright here.

Not all big West Coast firms are struggling...put your ear to the ground...you'll figure it out.

2008 is a bit of a question mark, but 2007 was a banner year.

I got away with the word bukkake

1:37, the layout of the board may be copyrighted.

it's true, the layout of the board may be copyrighted. they can easily design around this, however, by changing the shape of the board, the colors of the blocks, or anything to make it look different. The toymakers have no protection for how the game is played.

Let's get back to the topic at hand. First of all 12:39's and 1:02's general statements aren't precisely correct. Board games are copyrightable, and copyright claims brought by plaintiff manufactuers of board games have gone forward. See, e.g.:
HORN ABBOT LTD. v. SARSAPARILLA LTD., 601 F. Supp. 360; (N.D. Ill. 1984)
CASE SUMMARYPROCEDURAL POSTURE: Plaintiff filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against defendant in its copyright and trademark infringement case.
OVERVIEW: Defendant published a book using information from a popular game created by plaintiff. As a result, plaintiff brought a copyright infringement action and asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction against defendant. The court found that plaintiff showed a likelihood of success on the merits due to the amount of confusion that existed in the product. In so finding, the court stated that defendant used plaintiff's game questions and answers, used plaintiff's trademark, would not succeed on the fair use defense, and did not adequately disclaim connection to plaintiff. Furthermore, the court found that plaintiff would suffer irreparable harm from the infringement, and that the public had an interest in protecting copyrights. Even though an injunction might put defendant out of business, defendant's hardship did not outweigh that of plaintiff. Consequently, the court granted plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction.

OUTCOME: The court granted plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction because plaintiff showed likely success on the merits, had no adequate remedy at law and would suffer irreparable harm, the injunction served the public interest, and defendant's hardship did not warrant a withholding of equitable relief.

But see
WAITE v. PATCH PRODUCTS, INC. 12 Fed. Appx. 330 (6th Cir. 2001)
CASE SUMMARYPROCEDURAL POSTURE: Plaintiff copyright owner for a word game sued defendant manufacturer, owner, and creators of a separate commercially distributed word game. Plaintiff claimed copyright infringement, and state-law claims of unfair competition, and conversion. The United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan granted defendants' summary judgment motion. Copyright owner appealed, and defendants cross-appealed.

OVERVIEW: Copyright owner argued on appeal that she presented sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment. Manufacturer, owner, and creators of the other word game claimed that the district court erred in denying their request for attorney fees and costs. The court held that the copyright owner's idea of creating a game that tests players' ability to divine a relationship between words was not subject to protection under the copyright laws. Also, while the games both involved the exercise of identifying common characteristics between words, the goals and strategies of the games were substantially different. Furthermore, copyright owner did not produce any evidence that the manufacturer, owner, and creators of the other word game had access to copyright owner's word game. Attorney's fees and costs were not granted because the court did not find that the district court abused its discretion in declining to award them.
OUTCOME: The court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

class will become so much less tolerable if they shut it down.

1:51,

They certainly can design around it. Why they haven't yet is beyond me.

Wow 1:55! Great comment, however, I am left wondering . . . what unfortunate client is being billed for that fantastic treatise on copyright law you douche bag dork!

1:51, thank you for underscoring my point---that toymakers can copyright games.

Wow 1:55! Great comment, however, I am left wondering . . . what unfortunate client is being billed for that fantastic treatise on copyright law you douche bag dork!

2:00/2:04--no client, asshole. First of all, I happen to know copyright and trademark case names, the principles they stand for, and random facts from them off the top of my head even though I'm no longer in law school and don't practice in the field. Second of all, the entire readership of this blog does NOT work in biglaw with it particular online legal research billing situation.
Your failure to think outside the box is emblematic of the commenters on this post in particular and on this site in general. You're all conformists mired in groupthink.

Where the hell is Kolkata? Is that the same as Calcutta? My atlas is really out of date, or maybe it's just Anglosized.

Yes, Kolkata = Calcutta

1:02/1:43/2:02--your point was that toymakers could copyright the LAYOUT of the board. However, this aspect of the game is not the only portion which may be copyrighted. The first cased I cited involved the Trivial Pursuit board game--a work which was copyrighted as a whole.

Never seen "but see" in a blog before...

Um, nice summer story starter...but it's not summer...and yes, I've been around long enough to know about the fat-chic-in-the-bar and "did she get an offer" stuff.

Is Wordnerd going to cry . . . sniffle, sniffle? Is Wordnerd upset someone made fun of his post? Are Wordnerd's feelings hurt after spending his entire lunch trying to come up with something really intelligent to say just to have it made fun of? Go get your box of Kleenex Wordnerd . . . and tell me, has the word Kleenex become generic?

DORK! hahahaha

1:02/1:43/2:02--your point was that toymakers could copyright the LAYOUT of the board. However, this aspect of the game is not the only portion which may be copyrighted. The first cased I cited involved the Trivial Pursuit board game--a work which was copyrighted as a whole.

"Paying Too Much"--You got the gender wrong too, further evidence still of your failure to think outside the box. If a Biglaw firm is actually bankrolling such as shitty writer and thinker as yourself, you ought to change your moniker to "Making Too Much."

Wow, you really told me Wordnerd. By the way, the word "gender" has been used primarily to refer to the categories of "masculine" or "feminine." I think what you were trying to convey is that you are a female. And you claim to be a "Wordnerd?"

In fact, if anyone should change their moniker it is you. I have an idea . . . you should change your moniker to something like "I Use Words When I Don't Know their Proper Definition." That would be AWESOME!

Is no one else going to admit that they have a Scrabulous problem? I know I do.

Wow, you really told me Wordnerd. By the way, the word "gender" has been used primarily to refer to the categories of "masculine" or "feminine." I think what you were trying to convey is that you are of the female SEX. And you claim to be a "Wordnerd?"

In fact, if anyone should change their moniker it is you. I have an idea . . . you should change your moniker to something like "I Use Words When I Don't Know their Proper Definition." That would be AWESOME!

Wow, you really told me Wordnerd. By the way, the word "gender" has been used primarily to refer to the categories of "masculine" or "feminine." I think what you were trying to convey is that you are of the female SEX. And you claim to be a "Wordnerd?"

In fact, if anyone should change their moniker it is you. I have an idea . . . you should change your moniker to something like "I Use Words When I Don't Know their Proper Definition." That would be AWESOME!

"...was built for the site by Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla - software developers based in Kolkata."

I'm sick of this kowtowing to local spellings, as though this makes us more culturally sensitive. Am I going to have to say "Wien," "Moskva," and "Warszawa" next? Fuck that noise.

I <3 Scrabulous. But I'm sad that the official Scrabble dictionary includes the n-word. I had the letters to make it but couldn't bring myself to do it.

in other news...the 500,00 users a day were each sued for the entire statutory penalty per violation (defined as each gaming session)...amounting to approximately the size of the federal debt.

not really..but its the logical conclusion

Don't you non-IP people understand: you cannot copyright the functionality of a game. (You might be able to patent the functionality, but there's no indication that the toymakers have any patents, which would have probably expired by now anyway.) They can only protect the look and feel of the game, not how it is played. Design around is very easy.

"I'm sick of this kowtowing to local spellings, as though this makes us more culturally sensitive. Am I going to have to say "Wien," "Moskva," and "Warszawa" next? Fuck that noise."
.
.
Umm dude, if you changed your name from d-bag to asshole, I think it would be reasonable for you to expect me to call you by your new name.

Copyrighting Trivial Pursuit - which has written questions and answers - is completely different than copyrighting a process in a game. Big, big difference.

eh, who cares?

American Heritage Dictionary - gen·der (jěn'dər) Pronunciation Key
n.
Grammar
1. A grammatical category used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms.
2. One category of such a set.
3. The classification of a word or grammatical form in such a category.
4. The distinguishing form or forms used.
5. The condition of being female or male; sex.
6. Females or males considered as a group: expressions used by one gender.
7. Sexual identity, especially in relation to society or culture.
8. The condition of being female or male; sex.
9. Females or males considered as a group: expressions used by one gender.