patenting a game idea?

GeneralJist said:
I was told by several people I should patent it.

You can't patent a game design. I keep pointing you to my site, I know. Here I go again. “Legal Stuff: Part 1: Protecting Your IP” is FAQ 39. You can copyright your design document and player instructions and card graphics. You can trademark your game after you've done business with it (offered it on the marketplace). But you can't patent it. Read the whole article, including the comments section, and follow the links. You can also Google the terms copyright, patent, and trademark (that should go without saying).

But I wouldn't file a copyright claim until after the design has been fully tested and the artwork is finished and there are no more cards to add to the deck.

You don't patent an idea, you patent a technical process or invented method. The patented process must be repeatable by others, and the protection expires in relatively few years. The value is in the ability to sue others who use the technical process and collect for additional damages that would otherwise be more difficult to collect.

Generally legal action doesn't make sense unless you are looking at many hundred thousand dollars, and lawsuits are more expensive so you will need to be looking at millions before they are worth enforcing.

They are almost never “worth it” except as part of a defensive corporate strategy with a huge collection of patents, or as a patent troll where the real business model is suing companies rather than creating things, like NPE's.