My impressions were that it was a reasonable D paper - they are never easy, but I think that there were a lot of parts that were do-able and they asked frequent EQE subjects.
Most of the DI questions were open, so you needed to make strict choices about what to do - otherwise you ran out of time. The DII was more manageable than last year, and anyone who is Dutch or has lived in The Netherlands for more than a year will have immediately understood the product produced by the invention.😋. DII had less exploitation to be discussed.
Click below for some more details and spoilers about the subjects you had to deal with
Some of the subjects to be dealt with:
- quite a lot to do with opposition and appeal (if you did not know this so well, you would have had more difficulty)
- provisional protection
- intervention (frequent D paper subject)
- A84 as ground of opposition
- EPC filing date (frequent D paper subject)
- taking over representation (very practical subject)
- remedy after failing to fle an appeal (frequent D paper subject)
- amendments after approving R.71(3) (very practical subject - in Guidelines)
- patentability of ranges (frequent A, B & C subject)
- appeal after patent maintained in amended form after opposition
- PCT applications as A.54(3) against EP applications (frequent D subject)
Thanks for uploading! Have fun with paper C!
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteRegarding DII, Will EP-BB2 be published at all? It is deemed withdrawn and non-revivable. The normal publication date is in august (2018) så according to Rule 67(2) EPC. So EP-BB2 cannot be Art.54(2) prior art for any of the other applications? right?
Thanks in advance /Nabil
DI was good
ReplyDeleteWith DII I had some problems:
- PCT-BB2: could a claim to the subrange be patentable ... no effect was disclosed in the application, only in the experiments done for the appeal ...
=> so a selection invention might be difficult to claim,
=> based on that I came to the conclusion that PCT-BB2 does not contain patentable subject matter and recommended withdrawing it or not entering the EP-Phase to avoid being A.54(3) for EP-BB3
- is trumped shaped a specific variant of conically shaped?
That was more or less my conclusion for PCT-BB2. For the trumpet, I am not sure either.
DeleteThe danger this year was DI - I talked to some who started with DI, and they ended up spending a lot of time on it (3 hours even=, which meant that the DII was tough to do in the short time available.
ReplyDeleteThose starting with DII tended to feel that DII was manageable, but they had too little time for DI. But that is probably not a problem - that makes you concentrate on the main points.
Unfortunately, when looking at the paper, it is difficult to judge by scanning quickly which one to start with.
I spent 2 h on DI (3 minutes per mark) and spent the 3,5 h on DII
ReplyDeleteDI went well (if I look at the answers provided by delta patents)
DII I thought my analysis was completely wrong especially in regard of PCT-BB2 (as mentioned above). But now I am a bit optimistic ...
But thinking about whether the subrange is patentable and trumped shaped vs conically shaped consumed a lot of time.
I answered Q1 from DII as last question (it looked too time consuming) ... but was only able to check the dates whether the substantiation was filed in time. Then I concluded the appeal was admissable and BB gets Claim 1 + 3 granted ... but I think this conclusion is not correct and too brief ...
I came to conclusion that client was too late and opponent was in time.
DeleteSince the client received the decision later than the fictional 10d of R126(2) I came to the conclusion that that it was in time but that a reference to 1st instance submissions wouldn't be considered sufficient legal and factual support for the case. The auxiliary request could perhaps have been accepted. The client would still be entitled to be part of the opponent's appeal though. And could file the auxiliary during its examination.
DeleteI see it now. I had it in my timeline - I cant believe I missed it.
DeleteBecause i figured it would still work out (party as of right), client can still defend their position, I was not triggered to check remedies.
DeleteI re-worked 2018 Paper D at the weekend, and I found it to be the most challenging I've worked. In particular, question 2 - I simply don't understand the answer. I wrote A84 is not grounds for opposition, but the answer says it was already presented in granted claim 3. what? do I not read English properly? where does it say that in the question. One might wonder why I write on a 3 year old blog, but I googled Question 2 2018 and this was my hit :)
ReplyDelete