Friday, March 15, 2024 Pre-Exam 2024: first impressions?

 To all who sat the Pre-Exam today:

What are your first impressions to this year's (and last) 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 (despite having taken the technical tests successfully)? 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?

Wednesday, March 29, 2017 Pre-Exam 2017: results

Earlier today, the Examiner's Report was published, and now also the results are out and available on the EQE website here.

884 candidates enrolled for the Pre-Exam 2017, out of which 860 also sat the paper (97%).
672 candidates passed, corresponding to 76% of all enrolled candidates and 78% of all candidates that sat the exam. Congratulations!
188 candidates failed, corresponding to 21% resp. 22%.
The pass rates are thus similar as in 2016 and 2015.

The pass rate is considerably lower for resitters:

• 105 Pre-Exam 2016 candidates were resitting: 53 passed, 52 failed again
• 54 Pre-Exam 2015 candidates were resitting: 21 passed, 33 failed again
• 17 Pre-Exam 2014 candidates were resitting: 7 passed, 10 failed again
• 36 candidates that sat Pre-Exam 2015 and 2016 were resitting: 17 passed, 19 failed again
• 9 candidates that sat Pre-Exam 2014, 2015 and 2016 were resitting: 6 passed, 3 failed again
• 5 candidates that sat Pre-Exam 2014 and 2015 but not 2016 were resitting: 1 passed, 4 failed again

Monday, March 06, 2017 Pre-Exam 2017: first impressions?

To all who sat the Pre-Exam today:

What are your first impressions to this year's Pre-Exam (pEnglish, 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 2012-2016 (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 it compare to 2015 and 2016?

The paper and our answers

Copies of the paper will be provided on this blog as soon as we have received copies of the paper (English, French and German).

The core of our answers is 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 13-13-2017 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 with our answers and claims analysis related questions to our post for that part. 

Thanks!

Note: the legal questions are discussed here, and claims analysis questions here.


(c) DeltaPatents 2017

Friday, April 22, 2016 Requirement to register start of professional activities

For sitting the main exam, it is required that a candidate:

(a) satisfies the Secretariat that at the date of the examination (or rather, 1 March) the candidate has:

      (i) completed a full-time training period of at least three years in one of the contracting states to the European Patent Convention (hereinafter "the EPC") under the supervision of one or more persons European patent attorneys (for exact formulation, see Art.11(2)(a)(i) REE), or

      (ii) worked full-time for a period of at least three years in the employment of a natural or legal person in an EPC contracting state and have represented their employer before the EPO in accordance with Article 133(3) EPC (Art.11(2)(a)(ii) REE)), or

(b) performed full-time the duties of an examiner at the EPO for at least four years (Art.11(2)(b) REE).

For the pre-exam,  these periods are reduced by one year. 

On 1 April 2016, a revised version of Rule 28 IPREE entered into force, which requires candidates intending to enrol for the European qualifying examination for the first time to register once they have commenced their professional activities or employment.

The registration has to be done within 2 month after having commenced professional activities or employment. However, a transitional provision applies that the registration can be performed at any time during a transitional period that runs at least until 1 April 2017. 

Candidates enrolling for the EQE for the first time in 2017 do not need prior registration. 

Candidates enrolling for the EQE for the first time in 2018 or later are advised to register before the end of the transitional period, as otherwise only 2 months of the training period before registration will be taken into account.

The full text of the decision is given below:

Decision of the Supervisory Board 

The Supervisory Board,

Having regard to the Regulation on the European qualifying examination for professional representatives (REE) which entered into force on 1 January 2009 (Supplementary publication 2, OJ EPO 2014), in particular Article 3, paragraph 7, thereof, has decided as follows:

Article 1
Rule 28 of the Implementing provision to the Regulation on the European qualifying examination for professional representatives shall be replaced by the following text:

(1) In accordance with Article 11(1) REE, candidates intending to enrol for the European qualifying examination for the first time shall register once they have commenced their professional activities or employment as defined in Article 11(2) REE.

(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of Rule 7 and subject to paragraph 4, the fee for registration for candidates already registered with the Institute as an “epi student” shall amount to 50% of the basic fee.

(3) For the purposes of Article 11(2) REE, only such periods of professional activity shall be taken into account as have been accumulated after registration pursuant to paragraph 1 above. The maximum period of previous professional activity as defined in Article 11(2) REE which can be taken into account is limited to two months on condition that such period occurred immediately before registration. 

(4) During a transitional period of at least one year from the entry into force of this rule, the registration can be requested at any time. Candidates may request any previous period of professional activity as defined in Article 11(2) REE to be taken into account without the limitation specified under paragraph 3. Registration is free of charge during the transitional period. The transitional period may be extended by decision of the Supervisory Board. For candidates enrolling for the 2017 European qualifying examination, no prior registration is necessary.

Article 2 
This decision shall enter into force on 1 April 2016.

Done at Munich, 23 March 2016
For the Supervisory Board
The Chairman
Chris Mercer

----------
Added 4 January 2017:

A further Notice was published in OJ 2016, A108: "Notice of the Examination Secretariat of the European qualifying examination - Registration pursuant to Rule 28 of the Implementing provisions to the Regulation on the European qualifying examination"

The Notice provides many details as the the registration requirements and procedure.

The Notice indicates that the transitional period has NOT been extended by the Supervisory Board, as the Notice says: "During the transitional period until 31 March 2017 candidates may request any previous period of professional activity as defined in Article 11(2) REE to be taken into account without any limitation as to time."

Thursday, March 17, 2016 Pre-Exam 2016: results

The Pre-Exam 2016 answers and results were published ion the EPO EQE website earlier this evening.

The answers match the answers given in our earlier blogs for the legal part as well as for the claims analysis part:

1:  F T T T

2:  F F F F

3:  F F T T

4:  T T F T

5:  T T F F

6:  T T F F  

7:  T F F T

8:  T T F F

9:  T F T T

10: T F T T

11:  F T T F

12:  T F T F
13:  T T T F
14:  F F F T
15:  F F T F
16:  F F F T
17:  T F F F
18:  F T F T
19:  T F F F
20:  T F F T

792 candidates enrolled for the pre-exam, 763 candidates sat the exam (29 0-scores).

169 candidates scored between 1 and 69 marks and failed: 22% of all sitters, 25% of all who enrolled.
594 candidates scored between 70 and 100 marks and passed: 78% of all sitters, 75% of all who enrolled.

No candidate scored 100 marks, 4 scored 98, 15 scored 96, 144 (19%) scored 90 or higher.

137 out of 220 candidates that failed in 2015 have been resitting this year: 68 passed and 69 failed again.
32 candidates that failed in 2014 have been resitting this year: 12 passed and 20 failed again.
1 candidate that failed in 2013 (and 2015) has been resitting this year, and failed again.

The score distribution (5 marks bin width, labelled by their upper values) for all candidates is:

The score distribution for the 2015-resitters is:

The 2016 score of the 137 2015-resitters compares to their 2015 score as follows:

Tuesday, March 01, 2016 Pre-Exam 2016: our (provisional) answers to the claims analysis part

Before checking your own answers with the provisional answers given below, please first check out on the blog post  First impressions of Pre-Exam 2016? for general questions and general comments about the Pre-Exam 2016 (English, French and German), and post your first impressions there. The Legal part is discussed in a separate blog post.

Our preliminary answers to the claims analysis part (not thoroughly reviewed, subject to typo's) are:

Q11  F, T, T, F
Q12  T, F, T, F
Q13  T, T, T, F
Q14  F, F, F, T
Q15  F, F, T(*), F
Q16  F, F, F, T
Q17  T, F, F, F
Q18  F, T, F, T(**)
Q19  T, F, F, F
Q20  T, F, F, T

Any different opinions are welcome! Please post your opinions as comments to this blog, so everybody can from the discussion.  Comments are welcome in any official EPO language. So, comments in German and French are also very welcome!

(** Update: although we remain divided on 18.4 we now lean towards 'True'  in view of the comments, so we have switched our answers in our 'preliminary answers')

Nico, Roel.

See onwards for our short comment on each answer.

Tuesday, March 01, 2016 Pre-Exam 2016: our (provisional) answers to the legal part

Before checking your own answers with the provisional answers given below, please first check out on the blog post First impressions of Pre-Exam 2016? for general questions and general comments about the Pre-Exam 2016 (English, French and German), and post your first impressions there. The Claims Analysis part is discussed in a separate blog post.

Our provisional answers are:

1:  F T T T
2:  F F F F
3:  F F T T  *
4:  T T F T  **
5:  T T F F  ***
6:  T T F F  ****
7:  T F F T
8:  T T F F
9:  T F T T
10: T F T T

*: 21/12/15 + 10d [R.126(2)] -> 31/12/15; 31/12/15 +2m [R.131(4)] -> 29/2/16 (Mon); 31/12/15 + 4m -> 30/4/16 (Sat) [R.134(1)]->2/5/16; earliest possible R.112(1) comm: 3/5/15 + 10d + 2m -> 13/7/16
**: all answers from GL A-III, 5.6.
*** 5.4: no separate PoA needed if applicant signed the request and representative is appointed therein - R.90.4(a) PCT, AG-IP 11.007; further, if a separate PoA is used, it is not necessary that the representative files it as the applicant can file the PoA himself. 
****: rights conferred were not yet tested in the Pre-Exams so far - they are a major element of the D-paper, where candidates lose many marks if they wrongly state that a patent gives the proprietor freedom to operate.

Any different opinions are welcome! Please post your opinions as comments to this blog, so everybody can from the discussion.  Comments are welcome in any official EPO language. 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 29-02-2016 23:57"), whereas using your real name or a pseudonym is more personal, more interesting and makes a more attractive conversation.

Roel & Pete

Monday, February 29, 2016 Pre-Exam 2016: 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?

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

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

 paper?

How did this year's paper compare to the earlier pre-exams of 2012-2015 (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 will be provided on this blog as soon as we have received copies of the papers, in all three languages here (English, French and German).

The core of our answers will be given as soon as possible in two separate blog posts:one for the legal questions and the 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 13-13-2015 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 with our answers (available here) and claims analysis related questions to our post for that part (available here). Thanks!

Roel, Nico, Pete, Jelle, Gregory; 29/2/2016

Tuesday, July 07, 2015 How did Pre-Exam 2014 candidates to in EQE 2015?

Of the 985 candidates sitting the D paper in 2015, 428 passed the Pre-Exam in 2014 (of which 7 after the appeals to statement 10.4).

These 428 candidates scored as follows:

PE2014 candidates score >	68-69	70-79	80-89	90-100	All non-0	Never Pre	All Pre 2014
#sitting D (non-zero)	7	98	218	105	985	325	428
#passes D	1	53	170	98	554	110	322
#passes+comp fail D	4	63	185	101	667	151	353
#compfail D	3	10	15	3	113	41	31
#fail D (non-zero)	3	35	33	4	318	174	75
#fail D (zero) = no-show	1	3	3	1	44	27	8
#passes D	14%	54%	78%	93%	56%	34%	75%
#passes+comp fail D	57%	64%	85%	96%	68%	46%	82%
#compfail D	43%	10%	7%	3%	11%	13%	7%
#fail D (non-zero)	43%	36%	15%	4%	32%	54%	18%

Clearly, the higher the Pre-Exam score, the higher the chance to pass paper D. Probably this is an indication of both good legal preparation with serious studying for the Pre-Exam in the first year, combined with a good follow-up study and exam preparation in the second year.

It is also interesting to see that one of the candidates that appealed the initial fail decision passed paper D and 3 more passed paper D with a compensable fail. He or she even passed paper D even passed all four papers, with scores 62, 54, 52, and 56! Special congratulations to whoever it may be!

Further, see the discussions on the D-blog "D 2015 results for various types of candidates" and on our general EQE blog "Results Main Exam EQE 2015 are available!".

Roel, 7 July 2015

Wednesday, March 25, 2015 Training for EQE 2016

A brief overview of our training offers for EQE 2016 is given in an earlier other blog.

The first basic legal course, suitable for Pre-Exam 2016 sitters, and well as for Main Exam 2016 sitters that are not yet on solid legal ground, starts already with a first 4-day block in Eindhoven (NL) on 20-23 April 2015, addressing EPC procedural law and practice! This first block will be followed by next 2-day block on 18 - 19 June 2015 to discuss EPC substantive patent law and practice, and a last 2-day block on 14 - 15 September for PCT procedural law and practice

Details can be found on our website ("training", "webshop", general EQE training brochure, and 8-day basic legal brochure)

We also offer the course in other countries, and -for the first time- in Poland. The 8-day basic legal course in Poland is given in two blocks of 4 days, reducing travel cost and overhead of travel time. The blocks are scheduled on 8 - 11 June 2015 (EPC procedure) and 21 - 24 September 2016 (EPC substantive patent law and PCT procedure) -- refer to our other blog post and the 8-day basic legal (PL) brochure.

Hope to see you in once of our courses!

Thursday, March 19, 2015 Examiner's Report and Results Pre-Exam 2015

The Examiner's Report for Pre-Exam 2015 was just put online: here.
Update - 3 June 2015: an addendum has been published to the Examiners Report

The official answers (and where we deviated in our provisional answers - see below) are:

Q.1:  T, F, T, F;
Q.2:  F, T, F, T;
Q.3:  F, T, F, T;
Q.4:  T, F, T, F;
Q.5:  F, T, F, T;
Q.6:  F, F, T, F;
Q.7:  T, T, F, T;
Q.8:  F, T, T, F;
Q.9:  T, F, T, T;
Q.10: T, T, F, T;

Q.11:  F, F, F, F;
Q.12:  F, T, T, F;
Q.13:  F, T, F, F;
Q.14:  T, T, T, F;
Q.15:  T, F (we had T)@, F, T;
Q.16:  T, F, T (we had F), F;
Q.17:  T, T, T (we had F)@, F;
Q.18:  T, T, F, F;
Q.19:  T, F, F, T;
Q.20:  T, "see above" (we had T), T, T.

As to 20.2, the Examiner's report indicates:

• The statement 20.2 indicates that the material of D2 should replace the material of D1. This is not a valid argument within the framework of the problem solution approach, since D2 and not D1 is the closest prior art document. Hence, the answer to 20.2 is “False”.
  The formulation of 20.2 was however unnecessarily complex. Just by using the expression “D2 could be replaced by” instead of “D2 could replace” the solution would become “True”, since there is no teaching that solid wood could be replaced by the material of D1. For this reason, it is exceptionally decided to award marks for the answer “True” as well.

So, our (provisional) legal answers and our (provisional) claims analysis answers would have attracted all 50 marks from the legal part, and -with 3 isolated errors- 44 marks from the claims analysis part, so a total of 94. Further, for 20.2, both T and F were considered correct, which "saved us" as we deviate for 20.2 from the originally expected answer (F).

As a consequence, if you calculated a provisional score using our provisional answers, and had a different answer than we had for 15.2, 16.3, 17.3 and/or 20.2, your real score will be somewhat higher than expected, whereas your real score will be lower if you had the same answers as we for 15.2, 16.3 and/or 17.3.

The different answers to 15.2 and 17.3 relate to-what is referred to in the discussion to our claims blog- as the "cardboard issue" - the official answers to 15.2 and 17.3 rely on cardboard necessarily comprising / being made of wood fibers, whereas we considered the term cardboard to be a generic term and cardboard comprising wood fibers only one of the possible cardboard types -as we indicated in the discussion to the blog-. I refer to the earlier discussion to our claims blog for all arguments in favour of either conclusion, which were all given in the earlier discussion between various candidates and between candidates and our team.

@ = Examimer's report answered F for 15.2 and T for 17.3 -- however, appeals based on opposite answers were successful, so our answers T and F are (also) correct [comment added on 8 May].

We will discuss the differences between the Exam Committee's answers and reasoning and ours tomorrow or early next week in more detail - please feel free to already post your comments now.

Best regards, hope all of you that had a serious preparation passed this Pre-Exam and can now start preparing to sit one or more of next year's main exam papers!

Roel

-----------

Yesterday, Pre-Exam 2015 candidates received the following information from the Exam Secretariat:

• The results of the pre-examination of the European qualifying examination 2015 will be available on the EPO website from 20 March 2015 (12:00 CET) and will remain on-line until 8 September 2015 under the following link: http://www.epo.org/patents/learning/qualifying-examination/statistics.html
  
  You will be able to find your results by searching in the list for your EQE Registration number (EQEReg).
  The dispatch of the result letters is foreseen for the 27 March 2015. They will be sent by registered mail. If you are not present upon delivery, please collect the letter at your post office before it is returned to the Examination Secretariat.
  
  Please be aware that the Examination Secretariat is unable to resend any original letters and the sending of copies will take some time. Please also be informed that no information concerning results can be given over the telephone.

Surprise!!! The results came available already earlier today (20 March 2015): a bit before 11 am!

The document shows the results per EQEreg number and includes the following disclaimer:

• Please note that we cannot accept liability for the information given. Only results as notified to you in your result letter are binding. 
  Note from the editor: unfortunately, this sentence turned out not to be an empty phrase - at some moment during the day (20 March), the results file  was replaced by another file wherein the scores were decreased by 2 marks for 346 and 1 mark for 28 candidates (out of 796 candidates that actually sat the exam, i.e., had a non-zero score) [Special thx go to to Anonymous20 March 2015 at 16:01 and Rdiner20 March 2015 at 16:07 for having discovered this] - and was changed again later, back to the initial list - let's assume that that is the correct list, until other indications show otherwise.

• Closing dates for the European qualifying examination 2016 
  The closing date for the pre-examination is 2 June 2015.  
  The closing date for the main examination is 8 September 2015.
    
• All relevant information will be available in OJ EPO 3/2015.

Statistics Pre-Exam 2015 

From an analysis of the published results, we conclude:

• # candidates enrolled:  811
• # candidates sitting:     796 (non-zero marks)
• # candidates passing:   591 (70 or more marks): 74,25% of # candidates sitting
• # candidates failing:     205 (below 70 marks):    25,75% of # candidates sitting
• average score:               75,39 marks (of candidates sitting)
• maximum score:            96 marks

Congratulations to all of you that passed!!!!

So, the pass rate is -as we expected in view of the increased difficulty level (see our "First impressions" blog)- considerable lower than in earlier years, where it was 88-90%.
(Whether there will be any corrections to the marks in view of the cardboard issue remains to be seen)

The score distribution is, in bin sizes of 5 marks and 1 marks:

Resitters

It is also interesting to see how the resitters have been doing this year:

Pre-Exam	Candidates	Failing	Resitting	Of which	Of which
Candidates	in that	in that	this	passed	failed
in:	year	year	year	now	again
2012	390	5	0	0	0
2013	643	2	1	0	1
2014	648	107	61	17	44

The scores obtained by resitters in this Pre-Exam compare to the scores when they sat in 2014 as shown in the following figure:

I consider the statistics quite alarming: the vast majority of the Pre-Exam candidates that failed in an earlier year, failed again this time!!! 

One aim of failing an exam is to get a wake-up call and understanding that serious studying is needed. The high number of candidates failing again seems to indicate that they did not get this. Some may have failed the first or second time for other reasons, such as illness or nerves, but it seems unlikely that that holds for such a vast majority. Why do quite some candidates not improve? Did they study hard but anyhow failed again due to the increased difficulty level of this year (as indicated at least by the lower pass rate and the lower average score)? Or did they not study harder, and did they not recognize that they need to change their way of preparation and that they need to really start studying? Neither the EPC law, nor the PCT law, let alone their application to legal as well as claims analysis questions is such that you have any chance to pass by going to the Pre-Exam without a good preparation.And there is ample possibilities to prepare well: we provide good courses and good training material for candidates that do not have the level required for the Pre-Exam.
It was multiple resitters like these in the main exam that led to the introduction of the Pre-Exam!!!
And what I considers most alarmingly -and this may sound harsh...-: the resitters of 2014 are already active as trainee patent attorneys for three years or more, otherwise they could not sit the exam - or as examiners at the EPO for four or more!

The candidate that failed in 2013 and resat this year (skipped 2014), only improved his/her score from 40 to 59 - still quite far below 70. The other candidate that failed in 2013 did sit in 2014 where he or she with 89 marks: this shows that after a first  failure (which can happen to anyone, for whatever reason), taking the wakeup call serious and preparing well can thus lead to a huge improvement - it seems that this candidate decided to better be over-prepared for the Pre-Exam (looking into the future also for D, where your legal knowledge needs to be a further level up) than to just give it a try again!

As the Exam Committee indicated, the Pre-Exam is designed to give an incentive to let candidates start studying early, and with the intention to let candidates that are well-prepared (and well on track with their preparation for the main exam the year after) pass. You can study, practice and train all of this!

Monday, February 23, 2015 First impressions Pre-Exam 2015?

To all who sat the Pre-Exam 2015: 

What are your first impressions? Any general or specific comments?
Were the topics well balanced?
Was the Pre-Exam more difficult than in 2012, 2013 and 2014? 
Were the Legal Questions difficult? 
Were the Claims Analysis Questions difficult?
How many marks do you expect to have scored for the legal part, the claims analysis part and in total?
What is your expectation of the pass rate and the average score?
Was your preparation adequate?

We look forward to your comments!
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 27-02-2015 02:13 am"), whereas using your real name or a pseudonym is more personal, more interesting and makes a more attractive conversation.


You are invited to post your comments as to first and general impressions to the Pre-Exam as a whole to this blog as well as to any first and general impressions about the two parts (Legal; Claims Analysis) to this blog. Please post your comments as to specific questions and elements of (y)our answers  to the respective blogs where we provide our (provisional) answers:
   - Our (provisional) answers to the Legal Part of Pre-Exam 2015, and
   - Our (provisional) answers  to the Claims Analysis Part of Pre-Exam 2015

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

Copies of the Pre-Exam 2015 paper in each of the three languages are available here (linked to the EQE Compendium website): English, French, German: enjoy!!!

And hope to see all of you in one of our main exam courses: for more information (details of the courses, provisional dates, locations throughout Europe, and for paper C and D also German and French language courses for EQE 2016 preparation) refer to our Training page with links to the various courses that we provide, and feel free to contact Mieke Zonjee, our course coordinator for additional information at TRAINING -at- deltapatents -dot- com.

The DeltaPatents EQE training team