Kathryn Vatt has dedicated her career to protecting founders and their intellectual property so they can go to market, monetize, and scale with confidence.
She has spent over 25 years helping founders and innovators protect and commercialize their ideas. Kathryn is a former United States Patent Examiner, an angel investor, and a founder herself. During her tenure at the Patent Office, she evaluated and made patentability determinations on applications filed by some of the world’s most influential companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and Medtronic, among other global industry leaders. Her decisions directly shaped which technologies received patent protection and how companies secured long term market position and enterprise value.
Kathryn’s academic foundation reflects the same intersection of science, law, and innovation that defines her work. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, completed graduate training in biotechnology at Johns Hopkins University, and pursued advanced legal studies at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, one of the world’s most respected programs for IP.
She has been recognized as LinkedIn’s #1 Global Influencer in Innovation and IP, a reflection not just of expertise, but of trust.
What differentiates Kathryn’s perspective is that she evaluates startups through three lenses simultaneously: patent examiner-level intellectual property strategy, protection, and risk management; investor-level risk and value assessment; and founder-level empathy grounded in lived experience. This rare combination allows her to meet founders where they are, while helping them understand what decision makers on the other side of the table are truly looking for.
After repeatedly witnessing brilliant founders lose ownership simply because they were never shown how or when to protect what they were building, Kathryn created moatly™. As the Founder and CEO of moatly™, the first AI copilot patent protection system built by a former United States Patent Examiner, she supports early stage founders at the moment they are pitching, sharing, and building momentum. moatly™ helps founders protect before exposure so they can go to market safely without unintentionally infringing, losing ownership rights, or creating avoidable legal risk.
Kathryn is also the Founder and Chief of Intellectual Property at VATT IP Management, where she leads more advanced and customized intellectual property strategy for companies requiring deeper portfolio development and long-term protection planning.
Today, Kathryn mentors early-stage founders and university students, serves as a judge at startup pitch competitions, and works closely with builders at the moment they are most vulnerable, when momentum is high and protection is often overlooked. Her mission is simple. Democratize protection so every founder can protect what they are building before it costs them their future.