I have developed a new board game. What should I do to protect it before I start pitching it to companies?

Patent it or walk rigth up to the CEO of a board game company and make him an offer

Board game? Good luck, other than a VERY small market at specialty shops, board games are very bad sellers. Your best bet may be to make it your self and sell to comic/game shops

GET A PATENT NOW

develop a website where you can sell it online as a physical product or a download, so you can make a quick buck before it is ripped off and exploited. http://www.***************************

Copyright it then offer it to lots of companies if it's good let them fight over it but go high. Good Luck ;)

Copyright it and Patent it.

Should be able to get a copyright on it. (Well. Everything is automatically copyrighted, it's just that paying for one makes it easier to argue that it was originally yours). How to go about that varies from country to country. More generic information can probably be found on BGDF http://www.bgdf.com/

You probably can not patent it. UNLESS you have invented some device, actual physical device that no one has ever heard of. Okay, well my boyfriend who was trying to help decided to be an *** and stop, so Im sorry, this is all I can really say.

The right answer is to copyright it, but that can be expensive and time consuming. The second approach would be to mail a sealed copy to yourself, getting it timestamped. You would need be sure that the idea was original enough to be identifiable as yours, even with cosmetic changes. Also, I would recommend working with a literary agent with professional contacts.