Hi! Let's say I designed a variant of a popular (classic) board game; Could that variant be patented/registered, so I would be the only one allowed to publish it (the variant)? If it is possible, which would be the better way to do it? I know there are different ways to do it, which give different levels of protection, so far, what I know are: patent, copyright, and trademark. I think "trademark" protects names, logos and titles, not the ideas behind them. "Patent" is better designed to protect ideas, but as far as I know, a worldwide patent costs zillions of $$$ , and my fundings are very limited ^_^; so what's left is Copyright... is a Copyright enough to protect an original idea? Am I wrong? what do you suggest?

You can't copyright ideas, only implementations of the ideas.