While trying to gather some more adepts for it's latest game installment with EA, Hasbro decided to go from verbal warnings to legal challenges regarding the Scrabulous application on Facebook.

The toy maker that holds the intellectual property of Scrabble in North America filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday against Rajat Agarwalla, Jayant Agarwalla and RJ Software, the developers of the popular online game hosted by Facebook, for copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

“Hasbro has an obligation to act appropriately against infringement of our intellectual properties,” said Hasbro's general counsel. “We view the Scrabulous application as clear and blatant infringement of our Scrabble intellectual properties.”

The toy maker also demanded Facebook to remove the software application from their social networking site, in a letter sent to the company earlier this week. However, Facebook didn't comply with the demands, as they expect an official response from Scrabulous makers.

The lawsuit obviously evolves around a very lucrative business, that gathers 500,000 daily visitors and earns Scrabulous developers an estimated $25,000 in monthly profits.

The game made its Facebook debut in May 2007, and has attracted millions of users ever since, many of which have protested the copyright accusations, claiming that if it hadn't been for the online Facebook game, they wouldn't have been tempted to buy the original game either.

Well, to show that they're not the bad guy in this story, Hasbro doesn't want to erase Scrabulous from the face of the earth and leave millions of users with nothing. Earlier this month, the toy maker launched a Scrabble application for Facebook, with Electronic Arts' contribution, but this time it's all legit.

According to EA Hasbro general manager Chip Lange, Scrabble is “one of the best social game brands in existence” and they are working on ensuring an enjoyable experience for friends and family regardless of the platform they’re playing. We'll just have to see if Scrabulous fans agree.

According to media reports, the attempts to contact Rajat Agarwalla or Jayant Agarwalla were unsuccesful. However, earlier this year the Agarwallas have said in public reports that they expect fans to remain loyal to Scrabulous.