For tech startups, are trademarks necessary?

Question

Say I plan to iterate through several different minimal viable product sites over one year. For budget reasons, I want to avoid registering trademarks for each project. Is it really necessary in this day and age?

As for logos, I have definite proof of my first use of each logo, for which I have the server logs. Shouldn't this be sufficient evidence for any lawsuits? Also, if I own the domain of a certain name, doesn't that give me a pretty good case for using that name anyway?

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Answers: 5 public & 0 private

654f1e0651
Patent Attorney

1) If you are going to be frequently changing marks, registration probably doesn't add up on a cost-benefit analysis.
2) First use will only give you rights in certain jurisdictions; in others, whoever registers first has all the rights, regardless of use.
3) Owning the domain name is not a defence to trade mark infringement, so try to avoid other people's marks.

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