Procedure for protecting intellectual property of original board game design

Your game may be protected by copyrights, trademarks and/or patents. Ideally, you should use all three types of protection, if possible.

Regarding patent protection, it may be available assuming your game is new and non-obvious in light of existing games, patents, or other publications. Patent protection will likely give you the broadest and strongest protection; however, trademark and copyright protection will still be important.
As far as infringement, it may be worthwhile to see if there are any patents that might be at issue. Additionally, you may want determine if there are any trademark conflicts before you settle on a product or business name.

I suggest talking with a patent attorney or firm that has experience building an IP portfolio that includes trademarks and copyrights.

I just wanted to add to the above answer that I think you are concerned about a similar concept and you should be aware that you can't trademark, copyright or patent "an idea" or "a concept." It is how that concept is put into actual practice -into a created "work" - that can be protected. I can't protect the buying and selling of real estate as an idea but phrases, logos, slogans, etc, can achieve protection either by registration or use. In your case for example, there are many older games that use the idea of recreating the stock market as their premise, yet they could not claim that Stock Market Tycoon infirnged on their product . So Don't name it "Stock Market Tycoon" or anything that could lead to confusion and you should be ok.

DISCLAIMER- THIS CAN NOT AND DOES NOT TAKE THE PLACE OF LEGAL ADVICE> IT IS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY. IT DOES NOT ESTABLISH AN ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP. YOU SHOULD CONSULT A QUALIFIED LOCAL PRACTITIONER IN YOUR AREA FOR LEGAL ADVICE.

Actually, you raise a quite complicated set of issues. Before I could give you a definitive answer, I would need to investigate more precisely how your game compares to Stock Market Tycoon and others already in the market place or in development. Games can be covered by various types of intellectual property including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and various state law intellectual property protections, such as protections of rights to publicity and trade secrets. Faced with issues such as this, lawyers are often retained to conduct conduct trademark, patent and other intellectual property searches so as to ascertain the extent to which your proposed product might violate existing intellectual property rights. Further, if you invest in developing this product, you likely will need to invest in obtaining intellectual property protection, including applying for copyright, trademark and perhaps even patent protection.

Despite how complex this seems, my guess is that in consultation with an experienced attorney, you will be able to navigate through these issues and find a way to publish and market your product. For example, copyright protection is not available to "concepts" or "ideas"--copyright law protects only the physical manifestation of such ideas in specific publications, recordings or films. Nonetheless, trademark law prohibits your use of famous tradenames or trademarks in a way that would confuse some members of the public into believing that your game was actually a game produced by someone else under a well-known trade name. You will need to work hard to develop your own distinctive trademark and design, and make sure it cannot be confused with other designs and trademarks that are already on the market.

These are complicated issues that require a full review and investigation by qualified counsel. While it may seek expensive to retain counsel now to help you navigate through these issues, your investment in obtaining sound legal advice will reduce the risk that you will need to defend yourself and your product in litigation by your competitors--litigation that can be quite expensive while distracting from your efforts to build and promote your business. In the final analysis, there is no substitute for retaining counsel to work through these issues with you.