Zynga Partially Wins SCRABBLE Trade-Mark Dispute

Mattel, the owner of the SCRABBLE trade-mark, sued Zynga for trade-mark infringement in the UK, claiming that Zynga's SCRAMBLE WITH FRIENDS game was confusingly similar to Mattel's SCRABBLE registration.

The UK High Court dismissed Mattel's request for an injunction against the SCRAMBLE word mark, ruling that SCRAMBLE was not confusing with SCRABBLE. In the court's view, the word SCRAMBLE was an ordinary English word that was descriptive of the game.

Interestingly, the court relied on the fact that Mattel knew about Zynga's use of the word SCRAMBLE for many years and did nothing about it. From this, the judge concluded that Mattel didn't perceive the use of the word SCRAMBLE to be an infringement of Mattel's rights.