Friday, December 17, 2021 Planning to sit Pre-Exam 2023: Deadline for compulsory registration prior to first-time enrolment is 15 January 2022!!

Candidates wishing to enrol for the pre-examination 2023 for the first time must have completed a total period as defined in Article 11(2)(a) REE of at least two years by 1 March 2023.

Candidates who have passed the pre-examination and wish to enrol for the main examination for the first time must at the date of the examination have completed a total period as defined in Article 11(2)(a) REE of at least three years.

Be reminded that candidates must register once they have commenced their professional training (Article 11(2) REE; Rule 28 IPREE).

Enrolment to the pre-examination 2023 will only be possible for candidates who have registered by 15 January 2022 at the latest (see Notice of the Examination Secretariat OJ EPO 2018, A99).

Thursday, November 25, 2021 Pre-Exam Mock under exam conditions on 7 December 2021 - and on 3 February 2022

A mock Pre-Exam under exam conditions will be available on 7 December 2021, based on the exam of 2019. See also here.

Note that the Mock Pre-Exam paper may not include calendars - you can take them from the Pre-Exam 2019 Compendium here.

Update 14/1/2022: Pre-Exam candidates have been informed by the EQE secretariat that: 

"A further mock flow is offered on 3 February 2022 between 9:30 and 17:30 CET under examination-like conditions to test your equipment and settings (e.g. camera and microphone). 
For those who have not yet done such a test, please note that this one is indispensable before sitting the EQE." 

(See below for the full message)

Note that the Mock Pre-Exam paper may not include calendars - you can take them from the Pre-Exam 2021 Compendium here.

You will not receive calendars with the actual Pre-Exam 2022. In the actual exam EQE 2022 the basis for calculating time limits are the days on which the EPO filing offices are closed as published in the Official Journal. Candidates are encouraged to have the closing days of 2020, 2021 and 2022 at hand during the examination, as wella s a list of Saturdays and Sundays in these years. No calendars will be provided with the examination papers. See here.

Please feel invited to post your experiences with the Mock and the platform, comments and tips as comments to this blog. It is appreciated if you use your name or a nickname in your post, for easy reference (you can use the Anonymous option and close the message with your name, or use the google account or name option).

Wednesday, March 31, 2021 Pre-Exam 2021 - Results available in myEQE - Examiner's Report also available

Some candidates informed me that the individual Pre-Exam results are available in MyEQE now (31/3/2021, 15h)

The Examiner's Report is not yet available, nor is a full list of marks which would allow to determine the pass rate.

Congratulations to all that passed!

[Update 2 April 2021, 9:30:]

The Examiner's Report was published yesterday on the EQE website (Compendium).

• All our answers to Q.1-Q.9 in the legal part correspond to the answers in the Examiner's Report.
• Question 10 in the legal part (PCT-B, Applicant B/A mix-up) was completely neutralized.
• All our answers in the claims analysis part correspond to the answers in the Examiner's Report, possibly except 12.3 of our version (12.4 in the Examiner's Report): for that it is unclear whether the answer is FALSE or whether it is neutralized as no explicit answer is given, the argumentation suggests FALSE, but the argumentation also provides "the term is not necessarily unclear"  suggesting a neutralization as it does explicitly indicates that the statement cannot unambiguously be answered as FALSE nor as TRUE.. 
• No further statements were neutralized in the legal part nor in the claims analysis part.

[Update 7 April 2021, 8:30:]

• The Examiner's Report on the Compendium pages has been updated: the answer given in the updated version of the Examiner's Report to 12.4 is FALSE.

Please feel invited to comment!

Monday, March 01, 2021 Pre-Exam 2021 - claims analysis part: our answers

As in the legal part, when you check your answers with ours, note that the order of the statements within a question may be different!

Please feel invited to comment!

Note: the legal part is discussed in our other blog post: here. 
First impressions and general comments can be posted here.

[Update 4 March 2021 7:15:] We have compiled a version of the paper, in English; it is available here. In our version, the sequence of the questions and statements corresponds to the order as was presented to some candidates; other candidates obtained the questions (in the legal parts) and the statements within a question (in the legal parts as well as in the claims analysis parts) in different order. The sequence/numbering of the questions in our version of the paper corresponds to that used in this blog post.

Our claims analysis answers are given below.

[Update 2 April 2021 8:45:] 
The Examiner's Report was published yesterday on the EQE website (Compendium); all our answers to Q.11-Q.20 correspond to the answers in the Examiner's Report, possibly except 12.3. No statements were neutralized in the claims analysis part, except possibly 12.3 (see below).

[Update 7 April 2021, 8:30:]

The Examiner's Report on the Compendium pages has been updated: the answer given in the updated version of the Examiner's Report to 12.3 (12.4 in the Examiner's Report) is FALSE.

[Update 8 Feb 2022:]

Today, decision D 2/21 was published. The Disciplinary Board of Appeal reasoned:

"17. For the above reasons, the answer "False" cannot be considered to be the only correct answer that can be given to statement 12.4 [corresponding to 12.3 in the version on this blog] when taking an informed and objective view or interpretation of the wording of the facts underlying the pre-examination question 12 and the statement 12.4. As a consequence, the question of whether or not statement 12.4 is correct cannot be answered with either "True" or "False" as required by a "multiple-choice" question in the pre-examination."

Monday, March 01, 2021 Pre-Exam 2021 - legal part: our answers

This was the first e-EQE with the Pre-Exam being held in 4 parts, and with the questions almost fully being taken from the screen (only the calendars in the legal part and the application and the prior art in the claims analysis parts were printable).

In the legal as well as the claims analysis parts, the order of the four statements of each question was randomized, i.e., it was different for different candidates. 

Also the order of the questions was randomized in the legal parts (e.g., a candidate reported getting what is shown below as Q.2 as the first question and getting what is shown as Q.1 below as the third question), but not in the claims analysis parts. [Updated 2.3.2021, 9:20]

On earlier years, we just provided a list of T and F's for the 4 statements per question, as all candidates had the same order of them in the paper exam. In view of the randomized order, we now also provide the statements. If you check your answers with ours, note that the order of the questions and of the four statements from a single question may be different!!!

Please feel invited to comment!

Note: the claims analysis part is discussed in our other blog post: here.
First impressions and general comments can be posted here.

[Update 4 March 2021 7:15:] We have compiled a version of the paper, in English; it is available here. In our version, the sequence of the questions and statements corresponds to the order as was presented to some candidates; other candidates obtained the questions (in the legal parts) and the statements within a question (in the legal parts as well as in the claims analysis parts) in different order. The sequence/numbering of the questions in our version of the paper corresponds to that used in this blog post.

Our answers to the legal questions are given below.

[Update 2 April 2021 8:45:] 
The Examiner's Report was published yesterday on the EQE website (Compendium); all our answers to Q.1-Q.9 correspond to the answers in the Examiner's Report; Q.10 was completely neutralized (see below).
Note that in the Examiner's Report the order of Q.7 and Q.8 is swapped compared to our version, and that the order of the statements in most of the questions is different from our version.

Monday, March 01, 2021 Pre-Exam 2021: first impressions?

To all who sat the Pre-Exam today:

What are your first impressions to this year's Pre-Exam? 

What was the effect of doing it online? 

How did you experience taking the exam from your home or office location rather than in an examination center?

(How) was it different due to the due of the LockDown Browser?

What was the effect of the Pre-Exam being split into 4 parts?

Were you able to finish each of the legal parts of the exam in the 70 minutes available for the appropriate part? And for each of the claims analysis parts? 

What was the effect of the situation that you had to take the exam largely from the screen (as only a small part could be printed) rather than from paper?

Did you experience any technical difficulties during the exam? How & how fast were they solved?

Any general or specific comments?

Were the legal topics well balanced? Was the balance between EPC and PCT right for you? Were recent changes and stable legal provisions tested in the right balance for you? Which of the legal questions did you consider particularly difficult, and which relatively 'easy'?

Were the various aspects of claims analysis well balanced? How did you deal with the situation that only part of the paper (only the prior art) could be printed? 

How many marks do you expect to have scored in the legal part, in the claims analysis, and for the whole paper?

What is your expectation of the pass rate and the average score?

How did this year's paper compare to the earlier pre-exams of 2015-2019 (assuming your practiced those) w.r.t. the pre-exam as a whole, w.r.t. the legal part and w.r.t. the claims analysis part?
In particular, how did this year's claims analysis part compare to the 2019 claims analysis part which had 2 cases of 5 questions each? 

The paper and our answers

[Update 4 March 2021 7:15:] We have compiled a version of the paper, in English; it is available here . In our version, the sequence of the questions and statements corresponds to the order as was presented to some candidates; other candidates obtained the questions (in the legal parts) and the statements within a question (in the legal parts as well as in the claims analysis parts) in different order. 

(We expect that the paper will become available in all three official EPO languages on the EQE website, Compendium, Pre-Exam at the end of the week or next week)

Our Pre-Exam 2021 blog is composed of three separate blogs:

• first impressions with your comments as to first impressions, the Pre-Exam 2021 as a whole, the e-EQE platform, etc
• legal part with our answers tio the legal questions
• claims part with our answers to the claims analysis questions

We look forward to your comments!
Comments are welcome in any official EPO language, not just English. So, comments in German and French are also very welcome!

Please do not post your comments anonymously - it is allowed, but it makes responding more difficult and rather clumsy ("Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms Anonymous of 02-03-2021 22:23"), whereas using your real name or a nickname is more personal, more interesting and makes a more attractive conversation. You do not need to log in or make an account - it is OK to just put your (nick) name at the end of your post.

Please post your comments as to first impressions and general remarks to the Pre-Exam paper as a whole, and to the two parts (legal part and claims analysis) as whole parts to this blog. 
Please post substantial questions to specific legal questions to our post for the legal part and claims analysis related questions to our post for the claims analysis part (once those are available). 

Thanks!

Monday, March 01, 2021 Pre-Exam 2021 blog will open after the end of the exam, 1 March 2021 16:40

Good luck with your Pre-Exam!

Our EQE blogs will be open for your comments and opinions w.r.t. the Pre-Exam, A, B, C and D shortly after the exams. We will post our (provisional) answers to the various papers shortly after the exam. To facilitate the discussions, we will also post copies of the papers as soon as possible after we received reasonably clean copies.

Do not post any comments as to the merits of the answers of a certain exam paper/flow on the blogs while an exam/flow is still ongoing. Also, do not post the invigilator password or anything else that may be considered the breach of the exam regulations, instructions to the candidates, code of conducts, etc (see, e.g.,  e-EQE website and the emails from the EQE secretariat).

All candidates, as well as tutors who helped candidates prepare for EQE 2021, are invited to contribute to the discussions on our EQE blogs! You can post your comments in English, French or German. You are invited to post your comments under your real name, but it is also possible to use a nickname if you wish to hide your identify.

The DeltaPatents team

NB: you cannot comment to this blog post; comments will be accepted from a new blog post as of 16:40

Thursday, February 11, 2021 New instructions for answering the pre-exam and new marking scheme - no marks for a Q if not all statements answered

Today, a Notice from the Examination Board of the EQE was published in the EQE website.

The Notice provides that the instructions for answering the pre-examination paper and the marking scheme have been amended with immediate effect.

The instructions and the marking scheme which apply for the EQE 2021 are given in an Annex to the Notice.

The instructions reflect the 4-part form of the e-EQE 2021, as it was presented in Mock 2.:

• The pre-examination takes the form of a multiple-choice test made up of four parts and comprising a total of 20 questions. 
• Ten of the questions are on aspects of legal knowledge (parts 1 and 2) and
  the other ten are on the analysis of claims (parts 3 and 4).
• Questions must be answered by ticking the appropriate circle ("True" or "False") next to each of the statements that follow each question. 
• For the claim analysis parts, the hyperlinks shown at the beginning of each question refer to the documents made available for printing before the beginning of the relevant part of the pre-examination.
• I.e., the same as in Mock 2.
• Each question is followed by four separate statements. 
• Candidates must indicate whether the statements are true or false. 
• For each statement, only one answer may be given (either "true" or "false"). 
• Each statement within a question is to be considered independently of the other statements.
• To indicate that a statement is true, candidates should tick the circle next to "True".
  To indicate that a statement is false, they should tick the circle next to "False".
• All four statements making up a question must be answered either "true" or "false".
  If at least one of the four statements is left unanswered, then the answer to the whole question will be deemed not to be correct.
• There is no provision for submitting notes or remarks to the examiner. Any such submission will be disregarded.

Monday, February 01, 2021 Mock 2's Pre-Exam (1 Feb 2021)

"To allow candidates to test the system also close to the real examination conditions, a second mock (Mock 2) is planned for the week of 1 to 5 February 2021. The examination papers will take place during that week at the same week days and times as the real examination, see here." (see e-EQE webpage)

Today, 1 February 2021, the Pre-Exam of Mock 2 was organized, using the Wiseflow platform which will be used for the e-EQE 2021 in the week of 1-5 March 2021.

The Pre-Exam was split into four parts of 70 minutes, 5 questions each: two parts with legal questions and two parts with claims analysis questions. Each part had be completed before the start of the next break, with the next set of questions only becoming available after the break. Candidates were allowed to print only the calendar for the legal part and the prior-art documents for the claim analysis parts before the start of the appropriate part. (Also refer to our earlier blogs here and here, and here).

Please feel invited to share your experiences with the platform, as well as any comments to the paper.

When doing the two legal parts, Part 1 and Part 2, of Mock 2, I noted:

Friday, January 15, 2021 The Pre-Exam in the e-EQE

I am using a laptop with its camera positioned just below my external 23" monitor. The laptop screen is disabled. I use an external USB keyboard and USB mouse, plugged into the USB-hub that my monitor provides and that is connected to my docking station. I use a wired UTP connection from my docking station to my ADSL modem. This is my normal workplace for home working, except that my laptop screen is enabled during normal operation.

Comment: I also tried the system with the laptop only. However, its 12,3 inch screen is too small for convenient working (even though -or maybe also because- it has a very high resolution: 2736 x 1824, 267 PPI 3:2 Aspect Ratio).

When I log on to the Wiseflow System from Chrome, Wiseflow opens as a separate application and forces me to close two instances of Chrome as well as, if I have that still running, Teams and Outlook.

The Pre-Exam in Mock 1, available for practice since 22 December and until 28 February, is based on Pre-Exam 2019. So, it is recommended to not practice Pre-Exam 2019 before doing Mock 1.

As the real e-EQE, Mock 1 comprises 4 parts: 2 parts of 5 legal questions each, 2 parts of 5 claims analysis questions. Each claims analysis part has its dedicated claims case, as in Pre-Exam 2019 - that may not necessarily be teh case in e-EQE 2021.

The screenshots below are all from Mock 1; the observations and recommendation are derived from Mock 1. Things may still be subject to change for Mock 2 and also for the real e-EQE 2021.