Annoucement of Pre-Exam 2020 in OJ EPO - incl registration and enrolment information

The Announcement of the European qualifying examination 2020 - Pre-examination and main examination has been published  in OJ 2018, A108.

A few aspects are cited below, for all detail refer to the Notice itself:

Deadline for compulsory registration prior to enrolment to Pre-Exam 2020: 15 January 2019

The Examination Secretariat for the EQE published a notice on compulsory registration prior to first-time enrolment to the EQE in OJ 2018, A99.

The Notice provides the following:

Pre-Exam 2018: the results are out!!

The results are out! They can be found here.

The results for the pre-examination of the European qualifying Examination 2018 are listed according to the EQE Registration Number (EQEReg).

Dispatch of the result letters is foreseen for 3 April 2018, according to the document with the results.

935 candidates enrolled, 893 candidates actually sat the pre-exam.

Of the 893 candidates that sat the pre-exam, 655 (73%) passed and 238 (27%) failed. This is a approx. 5%-point lower pass rate than in the previous years (e.g., 2017: 78% and 22%)

When measured relative to the number of candidates enrolled (as the results are usually presented in the official statistics), 655 of 935 (70%) passed and 280 (30%) did not pass (including the 42 no-shows). This is a 6%-point lower pass rate than in 2017 (2017: 76% and 24%).

Mark distribution Pre-Exam 2018 (courtesy Jessica Kroeze)

Examiner's Report and answers

The Examiner's Report is not yet available (status: 21 March 2018; 17:35).

The Examiner's Report is now also available (22 March 2018, 13:30): here.

For 2 statements, marks were awarded for both T and F: statements 12.2 and 12.4. See the Examiner's Report for details.

Our legal answers got full marks, as did our claims analysis answers.

Deadline for compulsory registration prior to enrolment to Pre-examination 2019: 2 April 2018

The Exam Secretariat posted a new notice, dated 6 March 2018, about the compulsory registration under Rule 28 IPREE prio to enrolment for the pre-exam.

If you want to enrol for the Pre-Exam 2019, you must have registered by 2 April 2018 at the latest.

(Also see the earlier notice in OJ EPO 2017, A78 (29.09.2017), indicating that the request for registration must have bene made at the latest by 1 January of the year in which candidates intend to enrol for the pre-examination, i.e. by 1 january 2018 for Pre-Exam 2019).

The new notice reads:

[begin notice]

6 March 2018

Notice from the Examination Secretariat for the European Qualifying Examination (EQE) 

Deadline for compulsory registration prior to enrolment to Pre-examination 2019

Candidates must register once they have commenced their professional training (Article 11(2) REE). Enrolment to the pre-examination 2019 will only be open for candidates who have registered before the start of the enrolment period (enrolment from 3 April 2018 until 4 June 2018), thus by 2 April 2018 at the latest. Therefore, only duly registered candidates will be granted access to the enrolment portal for the pre-examination. 

In addition, all supporting documents must be provided within 10 days after filing the request for registration. These documents must be complete and fully sufficient to substantiate the request.

Enrolment for the pre-examination 2019 will not be possible for candidates whose request for registration are still incomplete or where further consultation is required. 

It is solely the responsibility of candidates to ensure the early and timely submission of such requests and all necessary documents. For this reason candidates are strongly advised to register immediately upon commencement of training activities.

[end notice]

Further information can be found on the EQE website and in our earlier blog post.

Pre-Exam 2018: our answers to the claims analysis questions

Claims analysis part of the Pre-Exam 2018 (paper available here: English, French, and German) was addressing jugs with replaceable filter cartridges.

Pre-Exam 2018: our answers to the legal part

As in the last two years, the legal questions were a mix of questions addressing standard topics, e.g. time limits, prior art, amendments, opposition, translations, EP-entry, and questions addressing topics that candidates are less familiar with such as late-filed claims, late-filed missing drawings, oral proceedings and interlocutory revision. Also, a question testing whether a patent gives the unconditional right to produce and/or sell or not was again part of the pre-exam.
Well-prepared candidates having good knowledge of the EPC and PCT and knowing their material  well (reference books, Guidelines, PCT Applicants' Guide, Euro-PCT Guide) for fast look-up should have been able to answer most of the statements correctly, provided they had their material updated to the legal status of 31 October 2017.
I expect that, as the previous two years, many candidates needed 1,5-2 hours for the legal part and the full 4 hours for the whole paper.

Our answers for the legal questions of the Pre-Exam 2018 (paper available here: English, French, and German):

Pre-Exam 2018: first impressions?




To all who sat the Pre-Exam today:
What are your first impressions to this year's Pre-Exam (English, French, and German)

Any general or specific comments?
Were the legal topics well balanced?
Were the various aspects of claims analysis well balanced?
Was the balance between EPC and PCT right for you?

Which of the legal questions did you consider particularly difficult, and which relatively 'easy'?
How much time did you allocate for the legal questions, how much for the claims analysis part? Did you deviate from our original plan (for example, took more time for the legal questions than planned)?
Which part did you do first, the legal part or the claims analysis?
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 2015-2017 (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? 

The paper and our answers
Copies of the paper are available in all three languages: English available, French availableand German available. (With special thanks to the candidates that provided these clean copies). 

The core of our answers will be given in two separate blog posts: one for the legal questions and another post for the claims analysis part.

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 13-13-2018 13:13"), whereas using your real name or a pseudonym 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

Thanks!

(c) DeltaPatents 2018