IP protection of games besides copyright

Lawrence is right. If considering other forms of protection beyond trade marks and copyright, you need to question whether they add sufficient value to justify the costs. In rare cases registered design or patent protection may be useful. There is more information on our website here (albeit with a UK / European focus): http://mewburn.com/library/information-sheets/board-games-and-puzzles

The question is why? (there is a cost involved in protecting anything). Copyright prevents outright stealing of code, trademark usually covers the characters and unique expressions from knockoffs, trade-secrets (on the server-side) makes it hard to copy any secret sauce. You could try design patent but part of the cost equation is enforcing it so if the benefit is marginal, you might to put scarce funds into channels or just innovating faster than cloners.