Pre-Exam 2023 results and Examiner's Report are finally out! - [Update 24 May:] as well as corrected decisions
The results for Pre-Exam 2023 came out yesterday afternoon, 10 May, finally, in MyEQE.
Congratulations to all that passed!
The Examiner's Report for Pre-Exam 2023 was published "already earlier" this Monday, 8 May (here).
Surprisingly only two statements were neutralized: 5.3 (needed a 2024 calendar) and 16.3 (in our version 16.1).
Statement 14.4 in part 3, for which we gave arguments for T (official answer) as well as for F, was not neutralized.
The statements in part 4 relying on the interpretation of "water-based solvent" being "just water" (and hence direct and unambiguous disclosures of %w/w of water) or "a solvent having a base of / based on water also including something more" (and hence no such direct and unambiguous disclosure og “water only”) were not neutralized - see 17.4, 18.3 and 20.1.
Please feel invited to post your
comments (using
your name or a nick name, not anonymously) to the respective parts of our
Pre-Exam 2023 blogs:
- http://pre-exam.blogspot.com/2023/03/pre-exam-2023-first-impressions.html
- http://pre-exam.blogspot.com/2023/03/pre-exam-2023-our-answers-to-legal.html
- http://pre-exam.blogspot.com/2023/03/pre-exam-2023-part-3-cleaning-utensils.html
- http://pre-exam.blogspot.com/2023/03/pre-exam-2023-part-4-erasable-inks-our.html
Statistics have not yet been made available but the EQE secretariat – they are usually published together with the statistics for the main exam papers.
Update 11 July 2023: We were just informed by another tutor that the Examiner's Report for the Pre-Exam on the EQE website has been replaced by a new one (without that being easily spotted as its carries no date or version number, as as there was no mention on the website that it was updated). The original one had errors with dates in one of the legal questions, and was in English only. The new one is in all three languages.
Update 24 May 2023:
“Subject: EQE 2023 Pre-examination - Communication from the Examination Board
Dear candidate,
We would like to inform you that after the release of the pre-examination results on 10 May 2023, we have encountered some discrepancies between the results communicated and what was to be expected in view of the Examiners’ Report. Upon conducting a thorough investigation, we have successfully identified the source of the issue, which is of a technical nature. Please be informed that the problem has been solved.
As a consequence, the results have been recalculated and must be re-issued. Therefore, the decision of the Examination Board concerning your result of the pre-examination 2023 communicated to you on 10 May 2023 is hereby revoked. A new decision based on the correct result is now available in myEQE.
Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Sincères salutations
The Examination Secretariat
on behalf of the Examination Board”
It will be interesting to hear what the effect of the correction of the decisions was:
ReplyDeletei) how many got from an initial fail to a pass (congrats!)?
ii) did anyone get from an initial pass to a fail?
I would expect that the latter did not happen, i.e., that it you initially and 70 and got a pass, they kept you at pass also if your corrected score was below 70, e.g., 68. Was that the case? If so, conformation would be appreciated!
Can the EPO backtrack on any of their decisions (except for when an appeal is filed)?
DeleteI'm surprised by this, actually. I had noted (as many others) that my mark was slightly different than what I calculated myself, so obviously something was wrong. But I had reckoned that people that were disadvantaged (got a fail while they should have passed) just would have to file an appeal and would get their pass during revision, while people who were advantaged (got a pass but should have failed) were just very lucky and the EPO could not do anything about it as the decision was made.
In a sense, I don't even understand why they put their effort in sending recalculated marks, which comes down to bringing new facts after having made a decision.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I have the impression that this is, on a legal level, quite messy...
(A colleague made an interesting remark wrt. case ii) (if that happened), actually... you can file an appeal and you will likely win and pass... but then, you may eventually be known as "the attorney who never passed preEQE"...)
I disagree. Since it was such an a obvious mistake (I think they had an issue or marking the randomised question for every candidates) by technical error, it doesn’t make sense to keep the result just because it was already issued. In such case where a crucial mistakes happens which applies for every candidates, I think it’s very fair to issue a new result by revoking the previous result which was seriously wrongful.
DeleteTherefore, I consider that there is no problem for this decision from EQE Board but they had to put further effort to check the results before they issue the official result to the candidates.
I'm not sure. If there is no legal ground for revoking a decision (I'm not aware of any), they simply are not allowed to revoke a decision, fair or not.
DeleteFor case i), fairness can, by the way, already be restored by filing an appeal, so I don't see a problem with respect to fairness of the decision was not revoked.
For case ii), the "legitimate expectations" of the candidate are damaged, so actually a case ii) would be unfair.
So also with respect to fairness, I have the impression that revoking their decision is not a good idea.
@Me: you are strictly speaking correct. Once a decision is issued, it cannot be changed unless appealed (and when an EQE appeal is successful, you get the appeal fee back). However, it was done at earlier Pre-Exams as well - at some occasions, a successful appeal (in interlocutory revision) by a single person resulted in a remarking of all candidates for which it made the difference between FAIL and PASS - no legal basis either for that "correction", but generally appreciated. But: as there is no legal basis for such correction as every pass/fail decision is an individual decision for an individual candidate, file an appeal if you have good grounds for doing so, as -by principle of law- you decision gets final at the end of the appeal period if not appealed.
DeleteRule 27(e) IPREE: "Examination Committee V shall be entrusted with the quality management of the papers. It shall advise the other Examination Committees in this respect."
ReplyDeleteIs timely and correct delivery of decisions also part of "quality management of the papers"?
Ouch! That burns ! ;-)
Delete"In all things success depends on previous preparation, and without such previous preparation there is sure to be failure."
ReplyDeleteEvery EQE candidate knows the principle "right to practice".
ReplyDeleteEPO should start to apply the "right to examine".
Who are you to say that?
DeleteMike, my name is written before the post
DeleteStop it guys.
DeleteI do not know the exact dates that are mentioned on your results letters, but I guess that the (1 month) appeal time limit must by now have expired or will expire in the next few days.
ReplyDeleteHave any appeals been filed? To which statements and with which arguments?
Statistics: see our blog post http://eqe-deltapatents.blogspot.com/2023/07/eqe-2023-results-available-in-myeqe.html:
ReplyDeleteThe statistics have been published late July (dated 18 July 2023)
Pre-Exam 2023: 519 candidates, 84,78 % pass, 15,33 % fail.
The pass rate for Pre-Exam 2023 is in the usual range (ignoring Pre-Exam 2022 in which 30 marks were neutralized). The relative low number of Pre-Exam candidates (usually 700-900) is probably an effect of lower hiring of new trainees during the COVID-period.