I am in the same position and have some questions, hope I am not hijacking the thread. I own a national magazine and we are putting out our 2nd issue. We currently circulate over 25,000 issues a month but honestly things are tight so we cannot afford a lawyer until January. We had one to do all the initial contracts but now we're on our own for a few months.

I'd like to protect the name of the magazine and general idea of it as it is the first if its kind in a certain niche sport. What can I do? Is it automatically protected since we're already published and circulated or can I trademark the name or take another route? I'd like to have documents in-hand in case our competition (Primedia) decides to play games. ideas?

Thanks!