Monday, August 14, 2023 EQE 2024 exam schedule now available: Pre-Exam

The "Information on the schedule for the EQE 2024 examination papers" (dated 27 July 2023) is now available on the EQE website. 

The EQE 2024 will take place online using the examination software Wiseflow, with substantially the same setup as the e-EQE/Online EQE of 2021, 2022 and 2023.

The pre-examination is again split into four parts of 70 minutes, each part having 5 questions (4 statement per question). Each part must be completed before the start of the next break, with the next set of questions only becoming available after the break. Once the time allowed for a part has elapsed, it will not be possible to go back to that part. The pre-examination lasts four hours and forty minutes.

No documents will be available for printing in the legal parts,

Candidates will be allowed to print the description of the invention as well as the prior-art documents for the claim analysis parts before the start of the appropriate part. The documents allowed for printing will be made available during the break preceding the relevant claim analysis part.

No calendars will be provided (see here).

Further, in view of the amendments to Rule 126(2)/127(2)/131(2) EPC per 1 November 2023 (1 day after the legal cutoff date acc IPREE, i.e., 31 October 2023), refer to: this blog post

(Note that that the document may be subject to minor changes as testing continues. Please check the EQE website for updates. E.g., for EQE 2023, an updated version of the document was published in December.)

Please feel invited to post your comments. You are allowed to post anonymously and do not need an account, but please give your name or a nickname for an easy and inter-human interaction.

Monday, July 03, 2023 Pre-Exam 2024: deemed notification: you can use to use the current "10-day rule" or the new version of Rule 126(2)/127(2)

The Supervisory Board of the EQE issued a decision on "Notification and time limit calculation" dated 26 June 2023:

"Candidates sitting the EQE 2024 (pre-examination and main examination) can use as legal basis Rules 126, 127 and 131 EPC as in force on 31 October 2023 or Rules 126, 127 and 131 EPC as in force on 1 November 2023."

So, when calculating time limits that run from the (fictitious) date of notification of a document, you are free to use:

• either the current "10-day rule" for deemed notification (or true date of receipt if received later) according to current Rule 126(2)/127(2) (as in force until 31/10/2023) 
  
  
• or the new PCT-like version (as in force from 1/11/2023) with deemed notification on date of dispatch/date of the document and a compensation for receipt later than 7 days (OJ 2022, A101, article 1(10)-(12); OJ 2022, A114, section IV; and OJ 2023, A29; also Guidelines E-II, 2.3 and 2.4).

This implies that the correct (True or False) answer will not depend on the version of the Rule used when the Pre-Exam answers.

Our Q&A book "Basic Legal Questions for Pre-Exam and Paper D" gives time limit calculations for both versions of R.126(2)/127(2) for all questions involving time limits calculated from he notification of a document.

Thursday, May 11, 2023 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:

Today, 24 May, candidates received the following email from the EQE secretariat:

“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”

Tuesday, April 11, 2023 Pre-Exam 2024: Enrolment to the exam open until 15 May 2023

If you plan to sit the Pre-Exam 2024, be aware that enrolment has opened on 1 February 2023 and that the enrolment deadline is 15 May 2023.

Note that for a first time enrolment to the pre-examination candidates must already have registered (deadline for registration was 15 January 2023 - see the EQE registration webpage and our earlier blog post). Candidates who have previously been admitted to the pre-examination are already registered.

Please refer to the EQE enrolment webpage and the document "Enrolment process and fees for the EQE 2024" dd 27 January 2023 for details.

DeltaPatents Course Offer

Please refer to our webpage for our course offer for Pre-Exam 2024: here. In particular:

• Pre-Exam Integrated course (13 x full-day classroom session): see here.
• Pre-Exam Distance Learning (13 x 1,5-2 hour online sessions): see here

Please refer to our webshop for our Q&A books and reference books for the Pre-Exam:

• "Basic Legal Questions for Pre-Exam and Main Exam" (L-book): here.
• "Pre-Exam book: Cases and Exams" (P-book): here.
• "References to the European Patent Convention" by Jelle Hoekstra: here.
• "Topic-Related Index to the EPC and PCT" by Roel van Woudenberg and Cees Mulder: here.
• A reduction applies when the latter book is bought together with "The Cross-Referenced Patent Cooperation Treaty" by Cees Mulder: here.

Monday, March 20, 2023 ChatGTP-4's attempt at parts 3 & 4 of the Pre-Exam 2023

We also let ChatGPT provide answers to parts 3 & 4 of the Pre-Exam.

Some practical difficulties were that only plain text could be entered, which means that in part 3, the figures couldn't be provided, and that the underlining when indicating amendments was not present.

If one would consider our answers (see seperate posts, which are not necessarily correct!!) as the intended solution and applied the Pre-Exam's marking scheme (all correct: 5 points, 1 wrong: 3 points, etc), ChatGTP achieved 16/50 points which is well below the required passing grade of 35 (normalized from 70 for the entire exam to 35 for parts 3 & 4) and rather a score associated with mere guessing.

Generally speaking, ChatGPT seems to be able to answer basic novelty and scope questions reasonably well but fails at more specific topics such as ranges. Also, ChatGPT appearantly disagrees with the EPO's relatively strict approach to Art. 123(2) and considers most of the amendments as supported. Perhaps this reveals ChatGTP's US-origin?

See below for ChatGPT's answers and short reasoning (red marked where ChatGPT's answer deviated from ours):

Monday, March 20, 2023 ChatGTP-4 finds the pre-exam legal part quite challenging.

From the ChatGTP-4 paper, we understand that its ability to pass exams has been greatly increased. For example, "on a simulated bar exam, GPT-4 achieves a score that falls in the top 10% of test takers. This contrasts with GPT-3.5, which scores in the bottom 10%.", see [1]. Naturally, we were curious to see how the AI would do on the EQE. The pre-exam legal part seems to be the most accessible for an AI, so this is the part we tried. 

We did two runs, one with a short prompt, and one with a long prompt. Both prompts explain the exam's requirements and ask for step-by-step reasoning. The long prompt also contains a question from last year's exam with an example of the required step-by-step legal reasoning. The prompt had to be very clear the program always needs to answer True or False, otherwise you get a lot of answers explaining why the available information is insufficient to make a decision. 

Saturday, March 18, 2023 Pre-Exam 2023 (part 4): erasable inks - our answers

The second claims part was about erasable inks.

“This invention provides erasable inks that provide good writing performance when used in writing instruments such as pens. The erasable inks are water-based inks that have a short "waiting time", i.e. inks that can be erased soon after they are applied on a surface made, for instance, of paper. Because the water-based inks are based on using water as a solvent rather than on using other solvents, the erasable inks of the invention are relatively non-toxic and odour-free.” [002] of the description of the client’s application)

Our answers to this second claims analysis part are given below. We have numbered the questions and statements for easy reference in the discussion.

Saturday, March 18, 2023 Pre-Exam 2023 (part 3): cleaning utensils - our answers

The first claims part was about cleaning utensils, in particular cleaning cloths.

Our answers to this first claims analysis part are given below. We have numbered the questions and statements for easy reference in the discussion.

Friday, March 17, 2023 Pre-Exam 2023 (part 1 & 2): our answers to the legal questions

This was the third online -EQE with the Pre-Exam being held in four parts, and with the questions almost fully being taken from the screen (only the description of the application and the prior-art documents in the claims analysis parts were printable; also no calendars were provided).

Our answers to the legal part are given below. We have numbered the questions and statements for easy reference in the discussion.

Friday, March 17, 2023 Pre-Exam 2023: first impressions?

 To all who sat the Pre-Exam today:

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

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) did you use the available online legal texts (EPO legal texts incl Guidelines, EPC Articles and Rules, RFees; PCT Applicant's Guide, PCT Treaty Articles and Rules)?

What is your expectation of the pass rate and the average score? How many marks do you expect to have scored in the legal part, in the claims analysis, and for the whole paper?

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

Did you experience any technical difficulties during the exam? Which? How and how fast were they solved? Did you use the search functions? Did you use annotation, sticky notes and other Wiseflow tools?

How did this year's paper compare to the earlier pre-exams w.r.t. the pre-exam as a whole, w.r.t. the legal part and w.r.t. the claims analysis part?

Friday, March 17, 2023 Our Pre-Exam 2023 blogs will open after the exam, 17 March 2023, 16:10

Good luck with the Pre-Exam 2023!

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 - for the Pre-Exam, we will use separate blog posts for the legal part and for the claims analysis part, and one for first impressions. 

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.,  EQE homepage, EQE notices, EQE online website, MyEQE, and the emails from the EQE secretariat).

All candidates, as well as tutors who helped candidates prepare for EQE 2023, 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 can not comment to this blog post; comments will be accepted from a new blog post "First impressions" as of 16:10, i.e., which will become available after the Pre-Exam has finished.