What are some IP-related mistakes easily avoided by startups?

A few mistakes that I see every year relate the the easily insured areas of copyrights, trademarks, and trade names, etc... (patents and trade secrets are more complicated and more expensive to insure, so this post is not about those).

1. very early stage companies fail to purchase coverage. This is a time when the insurance coverage is super cheap, but it is also a time when your brand becomes known and things come out of the woodwork. We often see uncovered suits during this time, because a policy was not purchased. This seems obvious, but the coverage is really cheap and at times not purchased.
2. Most companies later get some specific IP protection through either their "Cyber insurance" or have it added to their technology errors and omissions insurance. The common mistakes we see after purchase are two-fold:
a. law suits come in and the company fails to notice the carriers -- maybe they don't know they have the coverage specifically, or legal does not let the insurance buyer (usually the CFO) know. (e.g. I had a customer settle a $2 million trademark claim without telling the insurer. It would have been 100% covered, had they properly noticed it.)
b. again relating to notice -- a suit arises and the company notifies their outside attorney before the insurance carrier. The outside attorney will typically quickly advance on the case without telling the company (the insured) that the carrier is supposed to provide counsel. Once the carrier is noticed and attempts to provide counsel, the client and carrier wind up in a fight. It costs the company money fairly consistently. It does not mean at times that the company cannot pick their own attorney, sometimes they can -- they just need to get approval first.

I see these all the time -- especially the last issue.