How Founders Lose Ownership Without Realizing It: IP Essentials Before You Pitch
A former USPTO Patent Examiner reveals the ownership mistakes founders make in the first 6 months—and how to protect what you're building before you pitch, launch, or raise.
You post about your product on LinkedIn. Demo your prototype to early customers. Share your pitch deck with potential advisors. Launch a landing page to test demand.
Normal founder behavior. Smart, even.
But each of these moves can quietly erode your ownership—or put you on a collision course with existing patents that could shut down your business.
Here's what most founders don't realize:
A "patent pending" status doesn't protect what you think it does. Building in public creates prior art that works against you. Pitching before filing can forfeit your rights entirely. And going to market without checking existing patent territory? That's how you end up with a cease-and-desist letter the moment you start getting traction.
The worst part: most founders don't discover these problems until a lawyer flags them during due diligence—or an investor passes because the IP foundation is too messy to bet on.
In this fireside chat, Kathryn Vatt—who spent 15 years inside the Patent Office reviewing thousands of applications—will show you exactly where founders leak ownership and how to plug those holes early.
You'll learn:
→ The 3 most common ways founders accidentally give up ownership in the first 6 months (pitching publicly, posting progress, demoing MVPs)
→ What Patent Examiners actually look for when reviewing applications—and why "patent pending" often becomes "patent rejected"
→ How to check if you're stepping into existing patent territory that could block your launch or trigger expensive litigation
→ The difference between IP theater and IP protection—and what sophisticated investors check before they write checks
→ When protection actually matters in your founder journey (spoiler: earlier than you think, but not for everything)
→ How to move fast AND protect ownership—without hiring a $500/hour lawyer or slowing down momentum
This is NOT a legal seminar.
This is a candid conversation with someone who's seen what works and what fails from inside the Patent Office—and now helps founders become pitch-ready and IP-safe before they make expensive mistakes.
We're cutting through the legal jargon and giving you the examiner's playbook: what to protect, when to protect it, and how to avoid the landmines most founders step on.
This session is for you if:
You're building or posting in public without clear IP protection
You're preparing to pitch at demo days, accelerators, or to investors
You've been told "just file a provisional patent" without understanding what that actually covers
You're technical and assume your innovation is automatically protected (it's not)
You want investor-ready IP without blowing your budget on legal fees
You're worried you might have already made a mistake (there's still time to fix it)
What you'll walk away with:
✓ A clear understanding of when IP protection actually matters (and when it's overkill)
✓ Red flags that make investors nervous during due diligence
✓ Practical steps to protect ownership without hiring expensive lawyers yet
✓ A founder-friendly IP readiness checklist you can use before your next pitch
✓ Answers to your specific IP questions (bring them—no question is too basic)
About Your Speaker:
Kathryn Vatt is a former United States Patent Examiner and Global Intellectual Property Strategist with nearly 30 years of experience helping innovators protect what they're building.
After reviewing thousands of inventions inside the Patent Office—seeing which applications succeeded, which failed, and why—she now focuses on helping early-stage founders become pitch-ready and IP-safe before they pitch, launch, or raise.
Kathryn is the founder of moatly™ and VATT Intellectual Property Management, and has been recognized as LinkedIn's #1 Global Influencer in Innovation and IP Law. She's a scientist, entrepreneur, and mother of seven who brings both technical rigor and practical empathy to IP strategy.
Format: 60-minute fireside chat with Q&A. Come with your IP questions. This is about solving real founder problems, not legal theory.
What to Bring: Your questions, your concerns, your "I think I might have already screwed this up" fears. We'll address them.
Presented by Founder Institute Seattle
Led by Nicole Doyle, Aniket Naravanekar, and Jewel Atuel.
Founder Institute Seattle’s Spring 2026 Cohort launches April 22nd.
📅 Applications are open now at fi.co/seattle
🎓 This event is part of our public founder series