i was doing a domain search and found a short domain. i went to the trademark search and found it was trademarked once but the status is dead as of around 2002. this just makes me curious, what if i bought the domain and later on someone else trademarks the name. am i still in relatively safe waters?
A lot of people have trademarks that are never registered. If the person who owned the trademark in 2002 simply let their federal registration lapse, that may affect certain rights but it does not mean that their underlying trademark (developed through use, not through registration) is invalid. They could still cause you problems. It is different, of course, if the trademark has fallen into disuse in addition to the lapse of the federal trademark registration.
If the old owner hasn't used it in three years with no intent to resume use, it's considered to be abandoned. As far as someone else registering it later, if you are the senior user then you have the senior rights in the mark at least for the products and services for which you are using it. The U.S. anticybersquatting act also talks about and protects marks that are registered before the problem (or alleged problem) domain is registered. Timing matters. You could, of course, invest a few hundred dollars and register it yourself. That's a good way to get on safer ground.