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On Friday, President Obama signed the America Invents Bill, which attempted to reform the current patent system. Patent and intellectual property law is often confusing to understand, so I decided to break down what this means to entrepreneurs.

The main change: 

The United States will move to a first-to-file system instead of a first-to-invent system.

Translation – the patent application that’s filed at the earliest date wins.

Unfortunately, this bill makes it even easier for companies with the strongest resources, which are usually larger corporations with major legal departments. This makes it especially difficult for students and first time entrepreneurs to get their ideas off the ground and copyrighted. Sad.

To learn more about this, here are some good links explaining America Invent’s impact on entrepreneurship.

Betabeat – New Patent Law Only Makes Life Harder for Startups and Universities

Chris Dixon’s blog – Offers a great summary of the whole bill, plus Chris’ strong anti-patent opinions.

The Actual Bill – from the White House.

Thoughts?