Watson & Young, PLLC

Watson & Young, PLLC Watson & Young is a modern legal team empowering digital entrepreneurs by trademarking their ideas.

When you work with us, you’re working with a husband-and-wife team who genuinely cares about what you’re building.We’re ...
09/02/2026

When you work with us, you’re working with a husband-and-wife team who genuinely cares about what you’re building.

We’re raising our family, growing in our faith, and building Watson & Young together. At the same time, we get to help other founders protect what they’ve worked so hard to create, and that’s something we never take for granted.

Your brand represents so much more than a name, a logo, or a trademark application.

It’s your reputation, your ideas, your hard work, and in many cases, something you hope will take care of your family for years to come.

We think about intellectual property the same way we think about other assets, like real estate. It has value. It should be protected. And it can become something you pass down.

As parents, that part means even more to us.

It’s such an honor to help founders protect not only what they’ve built, but what they hope to leave behind.

08/27/2026

Your business may have outgrown its intellectual property strategy.

You may have started with one company name. Now you have programs, courses, products, events, methods, or signature offers that customers recognize and associate with your business.

But have your legal protections grown with the company?

We often meet successful founders who’ve built real value around multiple names and offers, but their intellectual property portfolio still reflects an earlier version of the business.

At a certain stage, filing one trademark at a time isn’t enough. You need a clear strategy for what the company owns, what should be protected, and how those assets support where the business is going next.

If your business has grown, your intellectual property strategy should grow with it.

Book a Trademark Strategy Session to get clear on what you own, what’s exposed, and what to protect next.
Link in bio.

Yesterday, the world lost Dolly Parton.But the songs she wrote, the businesses she helped build, and the causes connecte...
08/26/2026

Yesterday, the world lost Dolly Parton.

But the songs she wrote, the businesses she helped build, and the causes connected to her name are still here.

Dolly understood ownership.

She retained the publishing rights to “I Will Always Love You” before Whitney Houston’s recording introduced the song to an entirely new generation.

She protected her name through trademarks. She also filed to protect extensions of the brand, including DOLLY BEAUTY, DOLLY WINE, DOLLY U, CUP OF AMBITION COFFEE, and GOOD LOOKIN’ COOKIN’.

Her copyrights protected the songs.

Her trademarks protected the brands.

Her licensing partnerships helped move her name into food, beauty, fragrance, wine, hospitality, retail, and entertainment.
She didn’t leave ownership to chance.

Her legacy is a reminder that protecting what you create is part of what allows the work to continue.

Dolly Parton
1946–2026

BrandOwnership

08/20/2026

Your business may have outgrown its trademark protection.

At seven or eight figures, a trademark problem isn’t just a legal issue. It can affect your revenue, reputation, partnerships, expansion plans and the long-term value of your company.

But many founders are still relying on the protection they put in place when the business was much smaller.

Since then, you may have added new offers, programs, product lines, logos, slogans or partnerships. Each one can create intellectual property that needs to be reviewed and protected.

The bigger your brand becomes, the more people, money and opportunity depend on it.

Trademark protection isn’t paperwork you handle once and forget about. It should grow with the company you’re building.
If your business has grown but your trademark strategy hasn’t grown with it, book a Trademark Strategy Session.

We’ll review what you own, identify any gaps and give you a clear plan for what to protect next.

08/19/2026

You can build a business, make sales, and grow an audience without fully owning the name behind it.

Think about buying a house.

You can move in, decorate it, and treat it like home. But if your name isn’t on the deed, your ownership may not be protected.
Your business name works in a similar way.

Building a brand doesn’t automatically give you the strongest legal rights to it. Trademark protection can help you secure the name you’ve worked so hard to build.

Comment COPYCAT and we’ll send you our free training on what you need to know to protect your brand.

08/13/2026

A $1.5 billion settlement is an expensive reminder that innovation doesn’t replace the need for a sound intellectual property strategy.

The Anthropic case involved claims that the company acquired pirated copies of books while developing its AI technology. The court treated the use of copyrighted material for AI training differently from the way the material was obtained.

That distinction matters.

A company may be creating something new, but it still needs the right to use the material behind it.

As your business grows, more people begin making intellectual property decisions on its behalf. Employees create content. Contractors develop materials. Agencies source images and copy. Vendors introduce new software, and teams begin using AI tools in ways leadership may not always see.

Without the right agreements and internal processes, it can become difficult to know what the company owns, what it has permission to use, and where the risks are.

These issues often stay hidden until the company is preparing for an acquisition, licensing opportunity, investor review, expansion, or legal dispute.

At that level, intellectual property protection has to include more than trademark registrations. It should also account for your content, contractor-created work, licensing relationships, third-party materials, and the way your company uses AI.

If your business has grown but your intellectual property strategy hasn’t grown with it, you can book a Trademark Strategy Session with us through the link in our bio. We’ll help you understand where the gaps are and what should be prioritized next.

08/06/2026

An ice cream brand just won almost $24 million. Not because someone stole their name. Because a competitor's pint looked too much like theirs.

A court ordered Rebel Creamery to pay Van Leeuwen $23.785 million over the packaging. The pastel colors, the matching lids, the black script, that clean look you'd know on a shelf. No stolen name, no stolen logo. Just the vibe of the pint.

That's trade dress. The law can protect how your product looks, not only what it's called.

But the part that stuck with me isn't the money. It's how they won. Van Leeuwen kept everything. The early drafts, the tossed ideas, the old files with dates on them. Proof of exactly how and when their brand came to life.

Noticing someone copied you is easy. Proving you did it first is the hard part.

So save the messy middle, not just the final logo. That clutter you're tempted to delete is your evidence someday.

Because one day "that looks like mine" might need to become "here's the proof."

08/04/2026

The truth is, taking care of the brand that takes care of you has always been kinda chic ✨

6 years running.We’re Zara Watson-Young and Sean Young, intellectual property and business attorneys who show up the sam...
07/24/2026

6 years running.

We’re Zara Watson-Young and Sean Young, intellectual property and business attorneys who show up the same way whether it’s a trademark filing, a contract we’re combing through line by line, or a fight that lands in litigation.

Super Lawyers Rising Stars selects a small percentage of attorneys each year, and it comes through peer nomination. Other lawyers pointing at your work. 6 years in a row, and getting to do it side by side, means something to us.

Our 100+ 5 ⭐️ reviews say the rest!

People think a strategy session only covers trademarks. It's much deeper than that.Yes, the word "trademark" is in the n...
07/20/2026

People think a strategy session only covers trademarks. It's much deeper than that.

Yes, the word "trademark" is in the name. So most people book one assuming it's a single question: can I register my name? And that's part of it. But it's rarely the thing putting their brand at the most risk.

By the end of most sessions, we've talked about the contract with no ownership clause. The course that was never actually protected. The copycat they didn't think they could touch. The partnership that needs sorting before it turns into a problem.

Because the session isn't really about filing a name. It's about the bigger picture: what you own, what you're building, and where you're exposed right now.

Trademarks are a major piece of that. They're just not the whole thing.

So you don't need a "trademark problem" to book one. If it touches what you built, it's worth the conversation.

DM us PROTECT to book your session.

Address

244 Madison Avenue #1054
New York, NY
10016

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 5pm
Tuesday 10am - 5pm
Wednesday 10am - 5pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm

Telephone

+18446590358

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