Mock D under exam conditions on 2 December 2021 (and on 3 Feb 2022)
A mock D exam under exam conditions allowing you to test the updated WISEflow version with video/audio invigilation is available on 2 December 2021. See here.
The main purpose of the December Mocks is to test your equipment and settings, including camera and audio.
You can practice the papers at a later moment, as they will again be made available as Mock papers for a longer period, but without invigilation.
Note that the Mock D paper may not include calendars. As was announced earlier, in the actual exam EQE 2022 the basis for calculating time limits are the days on which the EPO filing offices are closed as published in the Official Journal. Candidates are encouraged to have the closing days of 2020, 2021 and 2022 at hand during the examination. No calendars will be provided with the examination papers. See here.
It has also been announced by email from the EQE secretariat to all candidates that, i a further mock under exam conditions will be conducted on 3 February 2022. The purpose of this mock is to check your equipment and settings. This mock will not contain a new paper, but a known paper used in the currently open mocks.
Please feel invited to post your experiences with the Mock and the platform, comments and tips as comments to this blog. It is appreciated if you use your name or a nickname in your post, for easy reference (you can use the Anonymous option and close the message with your name, or use the google account or name option).
Wiseflow/Flowclock has been improved for the main exam papers:
ReplyDeleteThe pdf viewer now allows annotation:
- highlight, underline,
- free form shapes/drawing, shapes in 4 colors,
- comments on the page, comment balloons
The editor now allows:
- boldface, italics, underline, highlight and colour were already possible;
strikethrough has been added (mainly useful for paper B)
- headers were already possible;
- font size can be selected
- copying from the pdf viewer into the editor using Ctrl-C - Ctrl-V has been improved (it does no longer break every line after several characters, which it did before)
- bullet lists and enumerated lists were already possible.
Note: if you want a deeper level, use Tab - many levels are available
Use the opportunity to test the updated, improved version with the Mocks, and familiarize yourself with the tools and options!
Although the main purpose of this blog post is to share experiences, comments and tips from the timed Mock on 2 December, I cannot refrain from briefly commenting on the paper ;)
ReplyDeleteD1.1 comprised 3 questions addressing a nice variety of topics.
Q.1 related to a disclosure by a former research director at an International Exhbition, that was cited as novelty destroying for the EP1 application. EP1 was deemed withdrawn at the moment and a subsequent, identical EP2 claimed priority from it. Candidates would need to assess whether the disclosure at the Int Exh could be considered non-prejudicial due to it being an international exhibition (be careful about its requirements!) or due to it being an evident abuse. Whether EP1 or EP2 had to be continued with (and why not the other), as well as how (which further acts are needed, without or with a remedy).
In Q.2, an accident at sea where the proprietor and the opponent were meeting in a boat to -without success- come to a settlement prevented both to file the grounds of appeal in time. A careful consideration of time limits, all aspects of reestablishment (cause of non-compliance and removal it it, all due care, omitted act, fee) as well as entitlement to request RE had to be discussed (GL E-VIII, 3.1.2 and G-decision therein)
In Q.3, an applicant requested early entry but, if you carefully checked the requirements, had not met all requirements for an effective early entry. Unfortunately, the relevant notice OJ 2013, 156 was not accessible under External Resources as it is only available on the EPO legal texts website in pdf (which wiseflow blocks) and not as HTML. But the details of it are cited in detail in, e.g., the Euro-PCT Guide that is accessible and in GL E-IX, 2.8. An answer would need to address which acts were missed at the date of the request (which did not need a remedy as the 31m period did not yet expire), as well as which acts are additionally missed if all acts for entry are completed today (renewal fee). The information that the EPO did not yet send a communication was a clear hint that entry was not yet successful and that no loss of rights had yet occurred.
Candidates will probably have considered the questions relatively difficult, as they were relatively long and tested a combination of usual as well as less-usual D1 topics. The questions were, in my view, well-drafted in terms of a complete and well-defined legal situation, while at the same time being presented as nice, real-life stories. I am looking forward to the second part, D1.2!
D1.2 covered (partial) priority in Q.4 and how a proprietor had to respond to the notice of opposition; Q.5 validity of priority in view of a subsidiary being the applicant of a priority application, and how/when to add a priority declaration to an earlier application;; Q.6 addressed hiding the name of the inventor in the publication under PCT and EPC as well as commenting on the abstract established by the ISA/EPO.
ReplyDeletecandidates will probably have considered the last question difficult where it concerned the PCT aspects, also because the PXT legal texts were not available online.
In the D2, your client Closeshave is one of the leading razor players on the European and US market, based in Manchester, UK. Closeshave is in fierce competition with both Razzor and Babysoft which are both based in Germany.
ReplyDeleteAll three companies filed patent applications, EP and/or PCT, some of them (validly, invalidly, or partially validly) claiming priority from national patent applications.
Various improvements to razors are topic of the applications: a razor guard made of resilient material, guards being made of specific materials (PU foam, EVA, EVA foam), pivotable razor heads which pivot along the longitudinal or a transversal axis, movable blades that can either be straight or bent (where the client informs you that the preparation of the blades is far from well-known, but Babysoft appears to to keep it as a trade secret which is very unfortunate for your client), and various combinations.
"A strange fellow called Strawman" has filed an opposition, but only in respect of 1 odf the 2 independent claims of patent EP-B1 from Babysoft. Your client want to use invalid priority as an additional ground of opposition. Your client received a warning latter in relation to that patent.
Razzor appealed the decision from the opposition diovision to reject the opposition against your patent EP-C1. With the appeal, they filed two new documents and your client asks you for advice.
Another opposition has been filed by Babysoft against EP-R1 from Razzor based on lack of inventive step w.r.t. the combination of PCT-C2 and EP-B1. Your client says that he "fully agree[s] with the arguments in the opposition", but you will conclude differently if you review them carefully.
Further, your client filed an opposition against Euro-PCT-B2 last week, without any evidence, but he intends to provide those by the end of the year.
You also had to discuss, a.o., a suggested amendment (to add some further examples of resilient materials to the description, which were not yet mentioned in the application, in order to support inventive step of the invention), and the correctness and consequences of a non-unity objection raised in the international phase.
The the closing paragraph, the client informs you that "Last week, Babysoft, Closeshave and Razzor entered the market in several European countries with razors having longitudinal pivotable heads including straight movable blades and EVA guards. Our investors are very upset about this and require me to provide them with options."
Q.1 asked about the current position w.r.t. 3 (Euro-)PCT applications and 1 EP application, but surprisingly not about all EP applications (EP-B1 and EP-C1 are not asked in Q.1).
Q.2 asked about improvements notwithstanding any possible acquisition(s).
Q.3, the client asked for immediate advice if the clientshould acquire Babysoft or Razzor, and hich actions Closeshave should take should they acquire the one and/or the other.
The paper requires a careful assessments of validity of priority (per claim!), (un)claimed matter, 54(2) and 54(3) prior art, genus-species, alternative species, (non-)unity, opposition aspects (extent, grounds, late submissions), insufficiency/enablement, YouTube as prior art, and appeal aspects (new documents). With quite many events, the time lime may easily get cluttered if a candidate has no efficient way to make a complete and correct timeline; in view of the amount of subject-matter and events, a good timeline seems indispensible.
Thanks Roel. Does anyone know if we'll have official answers so we can mark ourselves?
ReplyDeleteAnswer and subjects are available here:
Deletehttps://www.epi-learning.org/course/view.php?id=44&fbclid=IwAR0YjPQRDAYDC6vvqvw5sYPjvuNHpoHj-vqE1vJOrmDMR8-BU7VTFL8TjR4
thanks!
DeleteThanks, Olivier.
DeleteFor those who took it and are using the epi answers - 6 January is usually a holiday right? D1, Question 2 has a time limit expiring on 6 January 2022, and I wanted a sanity check.
Yes an office of the EPO is clsoed on the 6th of January 2022 : https://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/official-journal/2021/11/a85.html
Delete"Official" answers here: https://www.epi-learning.org/course/view.php?id=44
ReplyDeleteHow did you do with Wiseflow/Flowlock editor?
ReplyDeleteDid you run into any issues?
@Those that also sat a main exam paper in e-EQE 2021:
Do you appreciate the improvements?
Do you still miss some functionality?
Annotation options are an improvement. But for D2 I prefer a printed copy.
DeleteO.
I made a timeline as a table in the editor. When i downloaded my answer afterwards, I noticed that only about half of the table is visible on the pdf, the rest is truncated! Although timelines don't give any points, I was quite shocked. Are there other things that may disappear from our answers?
DeleteI noticed that opening the DII paper in a separate tab took some time. Maybe not more than one or two minutes, but I hope this does not get worse during the exam in March.
DeleteBeing able to highlight and tailor the colors is very good. It appears that if you do it once (selecting the colors for highlighting, underlining, the transparency and so on), the system remembers it. This is also useful to avoid doing the setup at the beginning for each of the papers.
Q.6-a): the model answer from epi says that there is no such provision in the PCT.
ReplyDeleteHowever, one could argue that it may be possible to use PCT Rule 48.2(l).
See also item 11 in PCT/WG/7/18 (part of the preparatory documents): "A number of national laws provide for the possibility to exclude from public access unintentionally disclosed trade secrets,or the name of the inventor should he wish to remain anonymous".
The applicant would then need to submit a request to the IB, prior to the completion of the technical preparations for international publication, to omit from publication the information of the inventor (name and address), arguing that:
(i) this information does not obviously serve the purpose of informing the public about the international application - the invention is fully disclosed by the application itself, in particular the description and any drawings; the inventor is not really relevant, as also supported by the possibility under the EPC to omit that info from publication (see (b));
(ii) publication of such information would clearly prejudice the personal or economic interests of any person - in view of the topic of the invention being improvements in assault rifles and the inventor living in a small village; and
(iii) there is no prevailing public interest to have access to that information - the interest of the public is rather in the applicant info.
Possibly, a declaration of the inventor would need to be filed in support of the arguments.
I also considered so.
DeleteRule 48.2(l) seemed only provision for omitting information from international publication when looking up OMISSION in the index of the Applicant's Guide. But 9.016A only provides general wording, and does not mention inventor info, so made me doubt. Could not find another provision on PCT, but because EPC allows I considered that it should be possible under some provision of PCT too. I decided to use 48.2(l).
9.016A. Can the applicant request that certain information be omitted from international publication? The applicant can make a reasoned request to the International Bureau to omit certain information from publication. He should preferably use form PCT/IB/384 for such a request, accompanied by replacement sheets from which the relevant information has been omitted, except for cases where the omission of information would result in the omission of an entire sheet, and an accompanying letter drawing attention to the differences between the replaced sheet(s) and the replacement sheet(s). In his request, the applicant must also explain why the information does not obviously serve the purpose of informing the public about the international application, that the publication of such information would clearly prejudice the personal or economic interests of a person and that there is no prevailing public interest to have access to that information. The request for omission of information from publication must be received by the International Bureau prior to the completion of technical preparations for international publication (see paragraph 9.014). If the International Bureau finds that the reasoned request satisfies all of the above-mentioned criteria, it will omit that information from international publication (and/or public file access, see paragraph 11.073A) and inform the applicant of its decision (form PCT/IB/385). If the International Bureau decides not to omit the requested information from international publication, it will inform the applicant accordingly (form PCT/IB/386). Where the International Bureau has omitted information from international publication, and that information is also contained in the file of the international application held by the receiving Office, the International Searching Authority, the Authority specified for supplementary search or the Preliminary Examining Authority, the International Bureau will also promptly notify that Office or Authority accordingly, so that they do not make that information publicly available either.
O.
If EP-B1 is insufficient (movable blades, straight or bent), why would (earlier) EP-R1 not be insufficient (also movable blades, straight or bent)?
ReplyDeleteI overlooked that. Good point.
DeleteO.
It made me puzzled too, especially as the insufficiency comment about EP-B1 was already in [004] and EP-R1 was only introduced in [007]. Note that EP-R1 has a later effective date than EP-B1 (filed January 2019), contrary to what you write.
Delete[013] made me doubt my initial interpretation (of insufficiency): "Last week, Babysoft, Closeshave and Razzor entered the market in several European countries with razors having longitudinal pivotable heads including straight movable blades and EVA guards". Clearly at this moment all three know how to make them.
Also, the description of EP-R1 does not have any indication about insufficiency.
I then read the last sentence of [004] again to try to find a different interpretation than my initial one:
"I was really hoping to see how Babysoft prepares their blades to compare to our process and materials, because preparation of the blades is far from well-known, but they appear to keep it as a trade secret which is very unfortunate for me."
I then changed my interpretation: the client already has a process and materials and the client hoped to find another preparation method in the application - but no better/easier/more detailed process was described to the client's disappointment (as they were kept as a trade secret). That EP-R1, filed a shortly after EP-B1, but before publication of EP-B1, so without knowing about the content of EP-B1) also describes blades is another indication that there were already methods known which allow to make movable blades, straight or bent.
So I concluded that there was no insufficiency problem, but that [013] was only expressing the disappointment of the client that Babysoft did not share more than needed, and did not share their trade secrets (i.e., their specific way to prepare their blades).
But the phrase "far from well-known" om [013] remains puzzling... If it is meant to indicate insufficiency, I see no reason why EP-R1 would not be insufficient too as no additional information is given about the process to make (pivotable) straight or bent blades. If however the sentence "EP-R1 claiming no priority, describing and claiming heads pivoting along longitudinal axis in combination with movable blades of any type (i.e. straight blades as well as bent blades)" was meant to be read as that the description and claims only mentions "any type", but do not mention "straight as well as bent" - but that the latter was only meant as clarification from your client that pivoting straight and bent blades are both covered -, there would not be an insufficiency issue with EP-R1 (it just referring to blades in general)...
It took close to one full minute to open the paper (English) in a separate tab when I started, much longer than when I first used wiseflow immediately after the first mocks became available. I worried after 30-40 seconds that it looked like nothing happened.
ReplyDeleteDid it also take so long for you?
Yes, the same here!
DeleteI just noticed that a new version of the document "Information on the schedule for the EQE 2022 examination papers" was published on the EQE website.
ReplyDeleteThe former version of 25 June 2021 has been replaced by a new version of 2 December 2021.
In the new version, the D section provides: "No calendars will be provided"
Also refer to our blog of FRIDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2021 "Calendars for EQE 2022" on our general EQE blog (http://eqe-deltapatents.blogspot.com/2021/11/calendars-for-eqe-2022.html)