Pre-Exam 2018 - congratulations to those with ambiguous answers

Several candidates who appealed their Pre-Exam 2018 failing grade of less than 70 have been successful. After taking the arguments provided in appeal into account, three more answers in the Pre-Exam Examiners' Report have been amended. See here for a track changes version (at the top of my Study Materials page).

Legal Questions:
4.4 True or False
5.3 True or False

Claims Analysis:
13.1 True or False

This is in addition to 12.2 and 12.4 which were already considered ambiguous at the time of marking.

Congratulations to those who have now passed - you have the weekend to celebrate. But not too long 😉- you need to enrol for the Main Exam between 9 July and 3 September for the Main Exam. And to make a study plan 😱.
A big thanks also to the Examination Board for objectively considering the arguments from those appealing.

New: Winning Oppositions and Appeals course

Another new course, for practicing patent attorneys and IP lawyers who want to go beyond the "EQE-level" of knowledge to get more confidence when dealing with these cases. Although in-depth legal knowledge of novelty and inventive step, practicals aspects are also dealt with such as auxiliary requests, oral proceedings, anticipating the next procedural stage.A lot of the contents is based upon my own experience, and this is a course I would have like to have followed myself a few years ago.

It is part of our Continuous Education For Patent Attorneys program, found here, which provides training and seminars in subjects important in daily life, and given from the patent attorney point-of-view, not the EPO point-of-view.

EQE Appeals

The deadline for filing an appeal against your EQE 2009 decision is approaching
(decision date + 10days + 1 month)

If you are thinking about it, consider the following:

• All grounds have to be filed within the same period (REE Art.24)
  
• It may take 1.5 years before you get a decision (so you will have to do the exam next year anyway)
  
• The chances of winning are tiny

There are two reasons to file an appeal:

• The exam committee clearly made a mistake
  E.g., they didn't mark a page of your answer, you got 0 points even though you have the same answer as the compendium
• You are very angry, and want to tell the examination board what you think
  This may help you to get past your disappointment

For most people, I recommend putting all that energy into analysing the differences between the compendium and your answer, and practicing past papers.

If you want to see how we can help, click on the link "Training for EQE" on the left.