Tuesday, February 02, 2021 Mock 2's Paper D (2 Feb 2021)

"To allow candidates to test the system also close to the real examination conditions, a second mock (Mock 2) is planned for the week of 1 to 5 February 2021. The examination papers will take place during that week at the same week days and times as the real examination, see here." (see e-EQE webpage)

Today, 2 February 2021, Paper D of Mock 2 was organized, using the Wiseflow platform which will be used for the e-EQE 2021 in the week of 1-5 March 2021.

I share my comments below (clock on "Read more").

Please share your experiences with the platform, as well as any comments to the paper.

Parts and breaks

Paper D was split into three parts as in the real e-EQE (see Information): 

• two DI-parts of 90 minutes / 25 marks each, and 
• one DII-part of 3 hours / 50 marks. 

Each part had to be completed before the start of the next break, with the next part only becoming available after the break. Candidates were thus not free to allocate their time as they see fit across the different parts of the papers (as they were since 2013). To compensate for this restriction, the total duration of the paper was extended: for each part, an additional 20% extra time was available compared to the 5-hour length of the paper itself (Rule 26(1) IPREE). 

The scheduled breaks could be used to, e.g.,  get a coffee, tea, snack, lunch, go to the toilet or go out for a quick walk.
The scheduled breaks also allowed to empty and refresh your mind, and to forget about the parts already completed, such that you were not distracted in later parts by considering if and what you may want to change something in your answer to the earlier part(s).
The scheduled break between the two DI parts also prevented candidates to some extent from running out of time for the questions of the second DI part due to a long delay or getting stuck in a question in the first part. The additional 20% extra time in each DI part was expected to be enough to compensate for the usual fluctuation of time needed for individual questions and for the limited choice of time allocation (only within a part vs over the complete paper as in D 2013-2019).

Only during part D2, candidates were allowed to take unscheduled breaks, allowing you to go to the toilet in this longer 3-hour session. (Not during the 90-minutes DI parts). When you take an unscheduled break you must inform the invigilator via the chat function, and again when you return to your desk. You do not have to wait for authorisation from the invigilator before leaving your desk. You need leave the system/browser running. (See Requirements for the e-EQE 2021).

Printing

Candidates were allowed to print only the calendar, the questions had to be taken from the screen. 

First DI part

The first 25-mark, 90 minute DI part comprised 3 questions:

1. The first question (10 marks) addressed where to validate in view if the client's and the competitor's business (manufacturing, selling, market situation), translations for validation (full, only claims, none; time limits not all standard), and renewal fees (to EPO or to national offices with renewal falling due shortly after grant)
2. The second question (8 marks) compared EPC and PCT time limit for filing fee (including R.19.4 situation) and additional search fee. It tested R.126(2) EPC as well as R.80.6 PCT.
3. The last question (7 marks) was a partial priority situation for jackets made from a polymer called PoleTex where the claimed range in the subsequent EP application (0,005-0,05 pore size) was not fully disclosed in the priority application (0,05-0,1), and where a release of a product of a 0,008 pore size occurred in the priority interval.

Second DI part

The second 25-mark, 90 minute DI part also comprised 3 questions:

• Q.4: acts in the regional phase after supplementary EP search, when a R.70(2)/70a(2) communication was just received, and in the rest of 2021.
• Q.5 addressed various aspects of appeal: entitlement (adversely affected), what, when, substantial procedural violation or not/ (lack of) binding nature of appeal in exam in subsequent appeal in opposition (Art.111(2) & T 167/93).
• Q.6-a) addressed time limits for various fees (in response of 71(3), appeal, PCT on filing), their amounts (could be answered with two possible sets: syllabus 31.10.2019 and 31.10.2020) - also in view of the PCT application being filed in XML (reduction in filing fee in view of PCT SoF 4, but no reduction in transmittal fee as RFees 2(3)&(4) did not yet activate those reductions (OJ 2019, A3). In b), the date and order of the various debit orders (automatic and manual) had to be discussed.

DII part

The 50-mark, 3-hour DII part had 4 questions. The first was directed, as most often, to the situation as-is. The second and third question related to improvements of our own portfolio, also in view of a European application filed by a former advisor on subject-matter to which he was or was not fully or partially entitled. The last question related to the risk of an Indian patent application. Each question had a plurality of sub-questions, giving the candidate a clear agenda as to what to discuss.

In the last several months, a Danish, Indian and EP application were filed by three different applicants; our client intends to file a PCT application claiming priority from his Danish application with additional subject-matter. No search reports are available yet from the authorities.

Aspects to be considered when answering included:

• first and second medical use claims, directed to various specific medical indications - novelty, scope of protection
• non-medical use
• product claims, process claims
• priority: all applications were filed within the last 8 months or so, such that the territorial scope of all of them could still be extended using priority - provided the first application requirement could be fulfilled.
• priority: same applicant
• inventorship and/vs ownership
• prior right effects, national applications, (potential) PCT and/or EP applications
• confidentiality
• conference in Davos
• handing over of a copy of a not-yet-published patent application as part of license negotiations
• contract assigning the world-wide right to file patent applications and the priority rights
• evident abuse - "not adequately enumerated" (depending on the choices made in improvements, you may or may not have needed this)
• entitlement - "Please assume that under Danish law, the right to the patent belongs to the inventor but that this right can be assigned by contract"

Way of working

I answered the questions (DI as well as DII) by first copying the complete question in my answer (and doing "remove formatting" and then reformatting it) so that I could boldface/italics/underline/highlight in the question and could see it in the same Tab as my answer. I did not use any tables.

In DII, I made my annotated timeline on paper. I also made a checklist on paper of issues I ran into when reading and which I expected to require discussion when answering. 

In DII, I abbreviated my client as JCS or simple used "client"; I abbreviated Mr. Oersted to mrOe.

I abbreviated the inventions in the same way as in the paper. I copied some longer phrases from the paper into my answer when I needed, such as the long-named effects and the content of the standard contract. I used bullets and enumeration when I referred to claims of applications. 

I use headings to structure my answer, especially in questions with multiple sub-questions and in the DII. The headings can be shown in a Table of Contents in the right panel so you can check which topics you discussed. The ToC can unfortunately not be used as a navigation pane (as in, e.g., Word or Acrobat Reader).

I answered my DI as well as DII in bullet-list form. That provides for clear overview, and also provides for a convenient font size and line spacing. You can indent at various levels - increasing indent goes smoothly using the Tab-key on your keyboard; decreasing indent by one level is done by clicking in the Bullet pictogram. Here is an example:

I am a slow typer. I would have been faster by handwriting. But when I wanted to insert a few bullets and add some more legal references, the editor was very convenient, so that the disadvantage of slow typing was partially compensated by the advantage of easy editing as well as formatting options.

After all parts were finished and the complete time for all three flows had lapsed, I could download my answers from Wiseflow (Open the respective flow; you find your answer as a pdf in the lower left box, under "1. Paper").

The epi published the paper and the model solutions on their website - here.

Please feel invited to comment

Please share your experiences with the platform, as well as any comments to the paper.

We allow you to post your comments anonymously, but it is recommended and appreciated if you identify yourself using your true name or a nick name - that makes communication much more pleasant and efficient than talking to "Anonymous 19 January 2021 22:23" and alike. 

Please refer to the "Problems with commenting" link on the top right of this blog page if you have problems with commenting (which may occur due to security settings, cookies, etc, esp when using Captcha with anonymous posts).

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Comments added 3/2/2021:

Getting stuck after copy into grey area

At the start of the second part of DI, I ran into a problem when I copied the first part of the paper n to the editor - the copied part ended up besides the editor and it looked that I got completely stuck. But I recovered using the Undo button.

This is what happened:

First, I selected all text in the separate Tab with the pdf of the paper. 

Then, I copied that into the empty editor, but I obtained this:

I.e., the editor window was still empty, but the copied text had appeared into the lower left corner of the screen, in the grey area of the Tab around the editor.

The editor controls at the top of the editor window were out of view and out of reach, so I could not to an Undo from the editor itself... and it seemed that I got stuck.

But I could recover using the Undo button (circled arrow) of the Tab (not of the editorm, but of the Tab itself), at the top right of the Tab, immediately below the WISEflow tabname: 

That got me back to the normal layout with an empty editor. 

I then copied the same part again into the editor after first having placed a space and a newline in the editor to make sure that I knew where I was pasting to.

I am not certain about the cause. But it was my first copy into an empty editor: I may not have had my cursor (target location) in the editor itself, but in the grey area around it when I pasted the copy part. I will try in paper A whether that is indeed the cause.

Copying from the paper into the editor

As in Mock 1, the copy-past from the assignment/paper into the editor still breaks the line into short pieces. 

These are the steps I take:

1. Open the paper/assignment in a separate tab

2. Select the part you want to copy

3. Use Ctrl-C to copy it onto the clip board

4. Go to the target location in the editor

5. Use Ctrl-V to paste the selected text in the editor 

6. You then get the copied part broken into short lines:

7. Use the "Undo formatting" button at the top right of the editor to remove these line breaks. Unfortunately, also the original formatting is lost, so you get a single paragraph of text, without any line beaks, without any formatting such as indentation or enumeration.

8. So, you: you will need to insert line breaks and paragraph ends, and you will need to insert several spaces as also some words got connected to obtain the question in the same paragraphs layout etc as in the paper:

That reformatting takes a few minutes for a DI question and about 5 minutes for the DII as a whole - but it makes life more easy when working on the paper thereafter. 

I also use the reformatting step:

• to read the question (for the first time) 
• to highlight key phrases,
• to reformat the question when I consider that appropriate, e.g., to make a "What has to do be done when and which fees need to be paid" as an enumerated list of 3 sub-questions:
  1. What
  2. When
  3. Which fees

so the time spend is not completely lost.

Update 3/2/21, 13:10: 

A colleague informed me that instead of Ctrl-C - Ctrl-V (resulting in the broken, short sentences), it is possible to use  Ctrl-C - Ctrl-Shift-V: the latter does not result in broken sentences but copies without formatting - the result is thus one long paragraph, i.e. all line breaks are deleted but all separations between words are maintained: effectively you did step 5-7 in one go and you can proceed with step 8.