Paper D Online EQE 2022: first impressions?
To all who sat the D-paper today:
What are your first impressions to this year's D-paper? Any general or specific comments?
How did this year's D-paper compare to the earlier D papers of 2013 - 2021?
Were the D1 questions and the D2 part similar as to its subjects and difficulty as the last few years (apart from the ratio this year being 45:55 rather than 2021's 50:50 or the earlier 40:60)?
Was the additional 20% of time for doing each D1 part and the D2 part sufficient to compensate for the restrictions caused by the fixed time schedule of 3 parts?
Were the topics well balanced in the D1-part? Was the balance between EPC and PCT right for you? Any substantive topics in D1 (e.g., was partial priority tested; were disclaimer tested)?
Which of the the D1 Questions did you consider particularly difficult, and which relatively 'easy'?
Did you skip any D1-questions? If so, why (e.g., too difficult, allocating the time for another question, no time left)?
Were the legal issues in the D2-part well doable? Amount of information? Complexicity of the inventions/subject-matter? Patentability? Difficult priority analysis? Non-standard claim formats? Business situation and relevance clear? Exploitation?
Did you experience any technical difficulties during the exam? How & how fast were they solved? Did you sue the widget to contact the invigilator?
How did the split of the paper into 3 parts influence your preparation? How did it effect your exam? How did you use the breaks? Could you forget about the finished part and free your mind for the next part in each break? Were the breaks long enough? Did you also take any unscheduled breaks?
The paper and our answers
We expect that the paper will be made available soon in all 3 official EPO languages on the EQE webpages, Compendium, D.
They key ingredients of our answers will be given in two separate blog posts: one for the D1-questions and another post for the D2-part.
We will not post our full answers but will rather give you the core ingredients, to allow you to post your comments and question without being biased by extensive answers from us.
We look forward to your comments!
Comments are welcome in any official EPO language, not just English. So, comments in German and French are also very welcome!
Please do not post your comments anonymously - it is allowed, but it makes responding more difficult and rather clumsy ("Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms Anonymous of 08-03-2022 21:20"), whereas using your real name or a nickname is more personal, more interesting and makes a more attractive conversation. You do not need to log in or make an account - it is OK to just put your (nick) name at the end of your post.
Please post your comments as to first impressions and general remarks to the D-paper as a whole, and to the two parts (D1 and D2) as whole part to this blog.
Please post substantial questions to specific DI questions to our D1 2022 post and DII-related questions to our D2 2022 post. Thanks!
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I found the exam very doable, questions were not too hard (or I really overlooked things and messed up). I could have used a little more time for D1, but D2 I had way too much time, I finished less or more with 70mins to spare. I obviously kept looking for extra information to add, but still handed in 15 minutes early.
ReplyDeleteI encountered no technical difficulties, the only thing was that it took about a minute before I could open the questions for each part, but nothing major.
I took one unscheduled break, went smoothly (although 3 minutes is short!).
I noted that I am a terribly slow typer, and I am making many many typos - wjioch are normally auto-corrected by Word while I type...
ReplyDeleteI considered the D1 questions to be relatively long, but not really more difficult than "average", i.e., within the normal variation.
The D2 did not have any surprises really (unless I overlooked something) - the difficulties in that were "standard difficulties" and well doable for a well-prepared candidate.
I will post some key considerations in D1 and D2 shortly in separate blogs.
See http://eqe-d.blogspot.com/2022/03/d-2022-di-part.html for D1
DeleteSee http://eqe-d.blogspot.com/2022/03/d-2022-dii-part-feed-clean-spray.html for D2
I had a crash of Wiseflow durng D1-1 and encountered difficulties getting back in, the invigilator support didn't connect for a few minutes and the invigilator pw wasn't provided. Also, once back in I could not close the support chat due to a bug and had to keep it there for the rest of the time, occuping part of the screen.
ReplyDeleteThe same happened to me ... but instead I waited 30 minutes, no invigilator ever connected to the chat. I ended up calling the Helpdesk to finally get the password. Once I got back into Wiseflow, the same bug happened to me, the chat window was still stuck there until the rest of the exam.
DeleteI had the exact same problem. The chat window was on top of the documents for the entire rest of the session... Also, the WISE flow software is quite... stupid, since it assumed my pressing alt+tab (which I do without thinking sometimes out of habit) was some sort of trick and ended up blocking me. Of course, since there were no windows open since wiseflow closes them all, then what's the logic of checking for that key combination especially when the window focus doesn't change after pressing it anyway? It's like the developers don't understand how to program for Windows. And hurrah for the EPO having us install spy software on our laptops. I re formatted the thing after the exam, just to make sure no keyloggers were left...
DeleteLast year, I could download my answers shortly after all flows had ended, but now it says "Submissions are not accessible on the flow after being made".
ReplyDeleteWill I not be able to download my answer?
I do not know. Maybe we need to wait a bit before they are released, in view of any possible special arrangements for candidates in view of impairments or so?
DeleteIt is possible now.
DeleteThe exam seemed ok difficulty wise, with a bit of a time strain for DI, and an abundance of time for DII.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I experienced technical difficulties with the text getting blurry when having the text in a side by side fashion and when having written more than what I assume corresponds to a page.
Another friend of mine also sitting the EQE reported the same issue.
Also the mistake in DI, in the question regarding partial priority was mildly confusing to say the least. Will be interesting to see what their response to the mistake is.
I also had the text getting blurry.
DeleteI had the same problem in the mocks and already reported it. They said that it would not be an issue if my setup would fulfill the recommended settings (my screen was slightly smaller). But it is a known problem, unfortunately.
DeleteI also found the wiseflow editor to be blurry, irrespective of the size of the font.
ReplyDeleteI got kicked out of D1-1 and had to reenter the exam, lost a few minutes because of that which I could have done with as I didn't manage to finish question 3...
Hi Meloo, did you have blurriness also with the Mocks?
DeleteYes I did
DeleteHi Meloo, may I asked why you were kicked out? Was it a problem of Wiseflow? Did the invigilator said anything about it?
DeleteBest of luck
I have no idea, I started my flow 10 mins in advance. It let me in, but then it crashed/kicked me out, so I had to re-enter. I wasn't contacted by an invigilator and I didn't feel that I had time to contact them.
DeleteTime-wise I was fine for D1/1 and had a bit of (felt) time constraint in D1/2, although it turned out to be fine.
ReplyDeleteSeems I got some points in D2 too, with plenty of time left. I spent more than one hour scavenging things I may have overseen, and even added a "Dear Client".
Was confused by the obvious direction towards part. prio, Art. 88 in Q5, then being shut down by prior art being novelty-destroying for any conceptual option (EN question).
My assumption that prior art was supposed to be more funky was confirmed by the posting in this forum, that the EN-version had a fault with the date being different for the DE/FR version. Happy 5p everyone, should not have wasted my time on including the (obvious) option that, if the publication had happened between prio filing and secondary filing, then ...
Other than that: I hoped that D would be the stinker, since I prepared most for that, now the evil part must be in ABC...
Wish us luck.
Any idea when the model solutions are released by the exam committe?
ReplyDeleteLast year, they were published on 18 or 19 June
Delete(http://eqe-deltapatents.blogspot.com/2021/06/e-eqe-2022-examiners-reports-available.html)
Normally, results are available at the same day, or just before - last year, the Examiners reports were available earlier than the results (only on 6 July) due to a technical issue.
The results will become available in MyEQE
Where can I find the questions? I did not sit the exam but am curious ;-)
ReplyDeleteHope you did well all!
They are not yet available.
DeleteLast year, when D was on 2 March, they were available on 8 March.
I did not sit paper D but i would like just a confirmation:
ReplyDelete- the chat with the supervisors is in the Flow? It appears automatically or do you have to launch it?
- If there is a crash, to enter again in the flow, the pass word is needed? but since we are out the flow, how to do to obtain the pass word? (the chat is in the flow)? Thank you!
I would recommend having the email of the helpdesk and the phone number for the helpdesk to hand.
DeleteI had to call the helpdesk because my submission failed for part 1. They told me they could do it for me, not to worry. Then they told me to refresh the page in the Lockdown browser and the submission worked fine.
The rules are that you should try to use the chat (which is a clickable button which is always present during the flow) and contact the helpdesk if that fails.
helpdesk@eqe.org
(+49 89) 2399 5155
@Anonymous 9 March 2022 at 09:55
DeleteIt appears that you also did not participate in any Mock under exam conditions - the situation was the same there...
The chat widget is at the lower right corner of the screen, when you are in the Flowlock environment.
You need to contact the invigilator if for some reason you have left the flow and want to get back in.
See EQE FAQ (https://www.epo.org/learning/eqe/faq.html):
"How do I contact the support team in case of difficulties during the EQE?
To contact the invigilator, you must use the integrated chat widget that appears in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen once you are in the FLOWlock environment. Do not close the chat before you have received an answer, you can minimise the window with "-".
The invigilator can also contact you via the chat widget.
The chat widget is present in the first tab (editor tab) and remains active when you are on another tab.
If the chat widget is not available and only in emergency cases please call +49 89 2399 5155.
Communication via email will not be dealt with."
I felt D1 was a little harder than previous years with more open ended questions (renewal fees anyone?) whereas D2 felt uncomfortably easier, especially given that it looked like OPT cleaned up on almost all the rights to the various inventions?
ReplyDeleteI also think D1 was a bit harder than previous years. I didn't have enough time in D1-1 and missed several issues (including the renewal fees, PACE,...). The open ended questions made it hard for me to decide which parts to elaborate on, and I lost a lot of time finding and citing legal basis for parts that perhaps won't even be considered relevant and won't be awarded any marks. But D2 went very well so I hope my marks in D2 will be enough to compensate for the marks lost in D1.
DeleteI also think D1 was a bit harder than previous years. But there is always some variation in difficulty of individual questions and also in the length of the D1 as a whole. More words does not necessary mean more difficult, as sometimes additional words are used to prevent ambiguities.
DeleteD1 2017, 40 marks, about 1050 words
D1 2018: 40 marks, about 950 words
D1 2019: 40 marks, about 725 words
D1 2021: 50 marks, about 800 words
D1 2022: 45 marks, about 900 words
The current exam seems to be within the usual variation as to number of words.