How I will protect the IP of my business [TINST 475]

For my new business idea of creating simple, yet fun tutorial games to teach video game illiterate people the basics of games, I will need to protect my IP. Primarily this will be accomplished through the use of Copyrights, Trademarks, and potentially a patent. Obviously, things like the name of my company and names of the developed games and software would be placed under copyright protection. Additionally things like any mascots I create, game assets, and narrative structures would be protected under copyright. My company would have little use for trade secrets. I would likely trademark any sort of catch-phrase that I use in advertising. That leaves the final type of IP protection, patents. Unfortunately as my company is primarily a software development company, patents are a bit of a tricky landscape to navigate. Software patents are tough because they often define things which are generic or vague. They also tend to not be particularly enforceable in many cases because of how non specific they are (there are a ton of ways to circumvent the patent through minute changes) The types of patents that I would be able to file would pertain to my methods of teaching users about game mechanics. This could be tough as it is fairly nebulous in the definition, and could possibly not be granted on those grounds. Otherwise, there really is no other use for a patent in my company. So, in summation, my primary method of protecting my IP would be copyright, followed by trademarks, and possibly patents.

-Don