Tuesday, February 26, 2019 Pre-Exam 2019: our answers to the legal part

This year's legal part addressed several topics that were to be expected (such as time limits, time limit differences PCT-EPC, filing date requirements, languages, …) as well as several less standard topics which well-prepared candidates would have been able to find in their EPC/ reference materials/ Guidelines (who can speak at oral proc, transfers, inventors, recording changes). Some usual topics, such as divisionals and EP-entry, were missing. Partial priority was not tested.

Overall, the legal part was -in our opinion- more difficult than in the previous years, and we expect fewer candidates to score 45 marks or more from the legal part; however, 40 marks for the legal part seems well within reach for well-prepared candidates.

Our answers to the legal part:

Monday, February 26, 2018 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):

Tuesday, March 07, 2017 Pre-Exam 2017: our answers to the legal part

As last year and unlike the years before, the legal part tested many non-standard topics. Some topics were quite unexpected, such as interlocutory revision, interruption and second medical indication - even though some of those statements were not that difficult, the unfamiliarity with the topic made them difficult. Well-prepared candidates having good knowledge and knowing their material well for fast look-up should have been able to answer most of the statements correctly. I expect that, as last year, many candidates needed 2 hours for the legal part and the full 4 hours for the whole paper.

Our provisional answers for the legal questions of the Pre-Exam 2017 (paper available here:  English, French and German):

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 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

Monday, February 23, 2015 Our (provisional) answers to the Legal Part of Pre-Exam 2015

Before checking your own answers with the provisional answers given below, please first check out on the blog post  First impressions of Pre-Exam 2015?  for general questions and general comments about Pre-Exam 2015 (click here for English, French, German version)!, and post your first impressions there. The Claims Analysis part is discussed in a separate blog post: Our (provisional) answers to the Claims Analysis Part of Pre-Exam 2015 

My provisional answers (not yet thoroughly reviewed; and subejct to any typos...) 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.

Key legal basis and/or argumentation to the answers is given below. I will double-check the answers today (Tue Feb 24) with my colleague tutors in DeltaPatents. Some comments for now:

* /** Q.1: not really a nice question to start with: 1.3 and 1.4 may have taken quite some time.

* For 1.3, I originally answered False as I did not recognize that the "change of representation" from A to B implied a termination of the authorization of Mr.A. Oops... See the discussion below: thx guys! 

*** 5.3: a bit of a tricky question, but almost the same as 4.2 of Pre-Exam 2014: an easy mark?!

**** 5.4: OJ 2013, 156, example 5, item 22; "on" in the statement.

***** 10.2: who of you ever tried?

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 26-02-2014 23:59"), whereas using your real name or a pseudonym is more personal, more interesting and makes a more attractive conversation.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 Pre-Exam 2013: answers to legal questions

The legal part of Pre-Exam 2013 was a bit more difficult than the very first Pre-Exam of 2012, but -in our view- candidates who were well-prepared should not have had any difficulty to score at least 35-40 marks on the legal part.
The questions covered a nice variety of EPC and PCT topics, with time limit questions being a bit over-represented. For each topic, questions addressed multiple aspects.

Our answers to the legal questions:

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

Detailed remarks (click "read more"):

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 Pre-Exam 2013 paper available

A copy of yesterday's Pre-Exam 2013 can be found on the Deltapatents website via IP Courses --> EQE Pre-Exam --> right-side column: link to "EXAM PAPER PRE-EXAMINATION EQE 2013"
(http://www.deltapatents.com/en/ip_courses/eqe_preexam/)

Enjoy!

Our answers to the questions will be posted asap.