I Trademarked My Name: Now, I Must Protect It

by Ashley Cheung, Principal & Founder, VPG & URCH

On Trust, Finishing What I Start, and Saying Yes to Myself

Three years ago, ADAPT.legal took a chance on me when Steve Gong and Adam Jaffe asked me to speak at Running Legal Like a Business. I was new to the Legalops.com community and hadn't built anything close to what Virtual Patent Gateway (VPG) or Urban Raccooons Creative Hub™ (pending) are today.

I somehow found myself paired with Azie Aziz for two sessions. We prepped as if our lives depended on it: 6 A.M. meetings in my room and at Chez Bon Bon. We over-prepared, actually, in the way you do when you're not sure you belong in the room yet. That prep turned into friendship, and into years of showing up for each other's work and personal journey.

The thing about ADAPT I didn't expect was that it wasn't just a speaking gig. It became a place where trust got built one collaboration at a time, with Gail Su, Steve Gong, Phong Dinh, Lisa Dong, Shirley Fung, Wade Yamazaki, Frances Winkler, Jessica Broyles, Hayley Day, and so many others who never made it flashy, just consistent.

Organizing this year's IP Career Track panel and happy hour at RLLB2026 taught me something I already knew but needed to relearn: community building isn't glamorous. It’s logistics, it’s follow-up emails, it's making sure the person who's nervous about being on a panel for the first time feels like she belongs there. It’s acknowledging those volunteers who quietly handled setup while everyone else gets the credit.

It’s the unglamorous, unphotographed work that holds a community together.

At RLLB2026, I also had the chance to connect with Sarah Foley, Founder of Foley IP Law, in an off-site podcast at The Pod Place, and it was such a positive experience. This recording will be the Season Finale for Season 4 of Virtual Water Cooler Chat (VWCC), airing on December 21, 2026. Thank you, Sarah, for showing up. I had an incredible conversation with you, as we talked about the practice behind the pivots.

The Doodle Experience, and the Six-Year Friendship Behind It

Sasha Strauss and I have been circling each other's work for six years now, and this friendship traces back to one sentence he said to me at the end of the webinar he taught: "We can't believe in you if we don't hear you believe in yourself."

That statement reframed my mindset, even if only a little. Over the past six years, I grew and took on challenges when I didn’t feel like I belonged. I learned from constantly pushing myself. Then, others like Seth Godin, Angela Duckworth, Adam Grant, Brené Brown, Daniel Pink, Arivee Vargas, and the VPG team finally helped me feel empowered; I felt this especially from my Gen-Z teams, who accept me for who I am. They know how incoherent I may sound when I am exhausted, with my train of thought going in all different directions, but they always have faith in me that I will pull it together.

This is one of the reasons for bringing Sasha to this year's Happy Hour and encouraging each participant to "doodle their essence.” The legal ecosystem can be strict and demanding of its stakeholders, and this is the time to relax and reconnect with our creative selves. So, at The Tavern, sharing a stage with an NFL kickoff game (loud doesn't begin to cover it), Sasha and I asked a room full of IP professionals to do something wildly unguarded: pick up an Olomarker, the Ferrari of markers (if you know, you know), and draw three things. Where you're going. Where you came from. And the bridge that connects the two.

The immediate uneasiness eventually met with people who showed up vulnerable. People who showed up willing to try in a loud Las Vegas sports bar. That's not nothing. Watching a room full of strangers get quiet and honest with a marker in their hand, surrounded by chaos, is the kind of thing you can't manufacture with AI. Sasha has a gift for creating that environment. I just got to help hold the door open.

Here's the Harder Lesson: The One About Being a Finisher

I have a writing project that's six months behind. For six months. I have said yes to speaking, yes to mentoring, yes to collaborating with IP professionals at every stage of their careers, and yes to volunteering. Unfortunately, I lost my commitment to myself and to my writing. I take my writing commitment seriously; my books aren't bestsellers because I choose to invest in my team while running an e-filing business. As each month passed, I found myself disappointed in my progress. I finally made the hardest decision I've faced since starting VPG: taking a break from volunteering after helping to finish my commitment for RLLB2026 and this incredible happy hour. I was fortunate to connect with others who have similar commitments. Molly Kocialski and Mary Fuller, who've been Regional Directors at the USPTO, came on their own dime to support us and talked about innovation, diversity, and their role in growing IP ecosystems. Sasha showed up; we moved tables and chairs and made sure that we could curate an ambiance for learning and growth. We succeeded. Every yes was worth it.

So now I am stepping back from my social media role with ADAPT. Not because the community stopped mattering; it matters more than ever, but because I cannot serve others when I am running empty or unfulfilled. I recently trademarked my own name: Ashley Cheung®. It's not a vanity move. It's me telling myself I am serious about this brand, about VPG, about URCH, about the work only I can finish. I can't be serious about my goals while I am perpetually six months behind on my projects because I keep saying yes and procrastinating on what Ashley must prioritize to grow.

This year, while I said yes to everyone else's needs, I also said yes to some things I genuinely never thought I would sign up for: running virtual workshops and writing another book with a publisher, the kind of personal challenges that scared me a little when I agreed to them. I am still in the middle of those, and I don't have a tidy lesson yet. However, I know this: saying yes to myself, to my own timeline, to my own unfinished work, is its own kind of courage.

The Harder Doodle: My Own Bridge

Here’s what I didn't say out loud that night at The Tavern: doing this work means constantly asking my people-pleasing self to sit down and be quiet. I am wired to make everyone comfortable, to smooth things over, to say yes so nobody feels let down. Such instincts have built a lot of the goodwill I have in this community. They have also quietly cost me my peace. It’s a lot easier to cheer other people toward their essence than to sit with your own and say, out loud, unapologetically: This is who I am, and this is what I am building.

Owning myself, trademarking my name, stepping back from roles that don't serve the work only I can do: my writing. I need to finish what's six months overdue, which means disappointing the people-pleaser in me daily. I am learning to let myself be uncomfortable. Sasha’s line stays with me for exactly that reason: you can't ask a room to believe in themselves while you're still negotiating with your own reflection.

I will always be grateful to ADAPT for including me before I was ready. That's rare. Most communities want you polished before they let you in. ADAPT let me learn as I went, stumbling along the way, and for that, I say thank you.

So, this isn't a goodbye. It’s a sabbatical, recommitting to finishing what I start, to protecting the time my own name deserves, and to showing up for this community differently, on purpose, instead of everywhere, by default.

I'm grateful for all the opportunities, and now back to finishing what's mine!