Approaching the EQE . 1st Approach - Serving the Client

I am pleased to inform you of the publication on YouTube of a tutorial entitled “EQE 1^st Approach – Serving the Client”. You can access it by keying in “EQE Approach”.

In this tutorial, the job of a European Patent Attorney in serving a client’s interests is applied to the EQE candidate by considering that the Examination Organisation -  a 50-50 joint venture between the EPO and the epi – is a client of the would-be European Patent Attorney who must find out this client’s requirements and serve its interests.

This tutorial will be of interest to all candidates preparing for one or more papers of the EQE.

This is the first of a series of tutorials covering six complementary approaches to the EQE.  Keep on the lookout for the follow-up.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial and wish you well in your preparations for the EQE.

Brian Cronin

PATSKILLS

Basic Legal Situations EQE pre-exam

I am pleased to inform you of the publication on YouTube of a tutorial entitled “Basic Legal Situations EQE pre-exam”. You can access it by keying in “Basic Legal Situations”.

In this tutorial, the legal questions of the 2014 EQE pre-exam are taken as illustrations of legal situations that are governed by legal provisions identified in the examiners report. Trainees are encouraged to practice situation-centric learning, which is in line with EQE preparations as well as Patent Attorney practice-based learning.

This tutorial will be of interest mainly to candidates preparing for the pre-exam and those who have passed the pre-exam and are starting preparations for the EQE D paper.

Following this will be a series of tutorials covering six complementary approaches to the EQE.  Keep on the lookout for these.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial and wish you well in your preparations for the EQE.

Brian Cronin

PATSKILLS

Patent Claim Analysis - EQE pre-exam

I am pleased to inform you that the first of the series of Patskills audio slideshow tutorials on the EQE has been published on YouTube.

You can access the tutorial on YouTube by its title "Patent Claim Analysis EQE pre-exam" or simply "Patent Claim Analysis EQE". To follow it,  your PC or Mac must be equipped with a loudspeaker.

This is a trial version and I expect to republish an updated version as the final "closing words" page was cut off.

This tutorial will be mainly of interest to candidates preparing for the pre-exam in 2015 or 2016, as well as candidates who sat the 2014 pre-exam. However well you did - you should check all answers to consolidate what you did right and correct where you went wrong.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial and wish you well for your EQE preparations.

Brian Cronin
PATSKILLS

EQE tutorials

Patskills has been running EQE preparation courses since 1969. For organisational reasons I will not be providing these courses in Geneva this year.

Instead I am planning to issue a series of audio slideshow tutorials covering different papers of the EQE. These tutorials will be made available free of charge.

The first tutorial will cover Claim Analysis based on the EQE pre-exam of 2014. It should be available soon.

I hope candidates will find these tutorials of benefit as a replacement to the Patskills courses and as a valuable complement to their ongoing training.

Brian Cronin
PATSKILLS

Learning from the EQE Pre-Exam

With the pass level raised to 70%, the pass rate for the 2014 EQE preliminary examination has dropped to 86%.

Obviously failed candidates have to review their answers to prepare for resitting the pre-exam in 2015.

For successful candidates, preparations for the papers they intend to sit in 2015 can begin in earnest. But the first step in these preparations could and should be a thorough revision of the pre-exam, checking the examiners report to reinforce understanding where your answers were correct, and learning by the correction of mistakes where your answers were wrong.

The pre-exam’s legal questions give a good lead-in to long-term preparation on « Part I » type legal questions for the D paper, by doing such questions one at a time at a slow pace, well spread out and correcting/improving your answers « immediately » as you go along. When reviewing the pre-exam’s legal questions always check the legal basis of the answer. Don’t forget, for the main exam you must provide the legal basis.

The pre-exam’s claim analysis questions are a powerful prelude for the A, B and C papers. They provide important insights on claim scope and the novel/not-novel boundary, important for A and B. But don’t take the pre-exam’s inclusion of « preferred/optional » claim features as a model for the claims you are expected to draft for paper A.

Seeking the basis in the description for the technical effect associated with a claim is a good apprenticeship for handling these issues in the C paper when you have to prepare to make an obviousness attack using the problem-solution approach. The pre-exam’s statements on problem-solution-effect are probably the hardest to reconcile. Pay attention to the examiners’ explanations and align your thinking. You need to master the problem-solution approach to survive the main exam !

Above all, don’t get into the mode of challenging the examiners answers ; this fosters a poor attitude to the exam and paves the way to becoming a disgruntled multiple resitter. Don’t attempt to justify your conviction that your answer is right and the examiners’ wrong. Instead, figure out the basis for the examiners’ reasoning and align to their answer. By accepting your mistakes and correcting them, you learn. By getting into a denial mode, you disperse your energy and stagnate.

The EQE Opposition Paper - Still a Challenge

In a previous post we observed that the EQE opposition paper has been reduced to manageable size and there are less opportunities to go wrong. It follows that candidates have a better chance that their preparations will be rewarded by success.

The new-format opposition paper nevertheless remains a challenge. Whereas there are less attacks and less opportunities to go wrong, less attacks means more credit per attack, and in case of a wrong attack or an attack that is correct but poorly presented, there is more credit to be lost. This dramatically shortens the path to failure in case of error.

As in the past, candidates will be well advised to develop a systematic approach for identifying attacks.

Its important to make sure of choosing the correct attack, lack of novelty or inventive step. For this, its going to be ever more important to focus long-term on the razor-edged novel/not-novel boundary.

Practice can be rounded off by writing attacks under timed conditions, aiming for high quality.

You can develop the right approach from the EQE Comprehensive book (details here) and by attending the PATSKILLS Opposition Course (www.patskills.ch).

Brian Cronin

PATSKILLS

Good news for EQE paper C sitters

The pass rate for the 2013 EQE Opposition paper C was 43.6%. A further 11.8% obtained a marginal fail that can be compensated. In comparison, the 2112 opposition paper’s pass rate was 33.1%.

The increased pass rate does not seem to reflect better preparation by the candidates, but could be the combined effect of a number of factors : shorter paper, less documents, less claims, less attacks, all leading to less stress so more candidates could manage the statement of opposition in the given time.

We can hope that the examining committees will take due note, and maintain a paper of the same « density » next year.

The message for new and repeating candidates for paper C is clear : the opposition paper has been reduced to manageable size and there are less opportunities to go wrong. It follows that you have a better chance that your preparations will be rewarded by success

Brian Cronin

PATSKILLS