The application was was also taken off the site in the US and Canada last month after Hasbro filed a lawsuit against the game’s Indian designers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla for trademark and copyright infringement.

The designers agreed to block Scrabulous in the US and Canada but said the UK application could continue. Currently the game is still online in India, but Mattel has filed a lawsuit in the country.

Hasbro and Mattel's have launched their own official Facebook version of Scrabble, created by Electronic Arts in the US and Canada and RealNetworks in the Mattel teritories.

The Agarwalla brothers have created an alternative word game, called Wordscraper, using new rules and circular tiles, which they hope will survive legal action.

Scrabulous was played by about 600,000 people on Facebook while Mattel's version only has about 70,000 active users.