Friday, August 23, 2024 EQE2025 edition of "Main Exam Questions for Paper D" available

The EQE2025 edition of ourQ&A book "Main Exam Questions for Paper D" is now available in our webshop. A German translation of the Question set is available as an option.

This book is for candidates preparing for the Main Exam if the European Qualifying Examination (EQE). The EQE 2025 version of this book has been extended with 32 new questions and now includes more than 630 legal and exam style questions directed to the EPC, PCT, the Unitary Patent and core provisions of the UPC. 

Monday, August 05, 2024 D 2025 will have a long D2 again

After two years of D papers with a 55-mark D1-part and a 45-mark D2-part, the D paper of 2025 paper will again have a D2 part that is longer than the D1. Some candidates will appreciate the shift, others may like it less... In either case, take it into account when you prepare! Also, the D1 questions will have an average value of 9 marks, whereas last year the D1 questions has an average value of 11 marks: as the D committee has indicated that they observed that candidates seem to appreciate (i.e,., score better) on long questions, this may make the D1 more difficult than the last two years.

The Schedule in the EQE 2025 has been published on the EQE website. It provides:

Thus: 

• the two D1 parts are relatively short
• there will be five (5) D1 questions for a total of 45 marks: 
• 3 questions for a total of 24 marks in D1-1 (1h 25 min)
• 2 questions for a total of 21 marks in D1-2 (1h 15 min);\
• the D2 part will be 55 marks and 3 h 20 minutes

For more details, refer to the complete document.

For our courses see:

• here (EN), 
• here (DE) and 
• here (FR).

For our study/ practice and reference material, see: 

• here for "Main Exam Questions for paper D" (D-book Q&A), optional add-on: translation of the Questions in German,  
• here (model solutions), 
• here (Reference to the EPC,Hoekstra), 
• here (Cross-Referenced PCT, Mulder and Van Woudenberg), 
• here (Topic-Related Index to the EPC and PCT, Van Woudenberg and Mulder).

Tuesday, March 05, 2024 D2 2024: Spiders, mosquitos and silk

This year's D2 was a paper of 2 h 40 min (14:05 - 16:45 CET) and only 45 marks, together with D2 2023 the shortest D2s ever (or at lerast, since very long).

You will have met Mr. Wool, Xeracno, Prosilk, and Smart SA. You learned about harvesting spider silk, raising spiders, cannibalism between spiders and feeding spiders with tiger mosquitos. Even two species of spiders starred in the paper: AA (Aranea aurata) and AF (Aranea fortis)!

Tuesday, March 05, 2024 D1 2024: a 14-mark question to start with!

One of us sat the D paper today as a benchmarker and made some notes on the D1 paper that we share below. Note that these are just a few brief notes, and have not been reviewed yet by colleague tutor. We will post more extensive answers later, after our internal review. 

Today's D1 was again worth a total of 55 marks, distributed over 2 parts with a 30 minute break in between:

• D1-1 had only 2 questions, for a total of 26 marks, and had to be done from 9:30-11:05. 
• D1-2 also had 3 questions, for a total of 29 marks, and had to be done from 11:35-13:20.

Tuesday, March 05, 2024 D 2024: 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 online D papers of 2021 - 2023?

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 55:45 as in 2023, but different from 2022's 45:55, 2021's 50:50 or the earlier 40:60)? 

Did you appreciate the longer the questions (only 5 questions for 55 marks, and in the first part at least one question of 13 marks or more)?

Tuesday, March 05, 2024 Our paper D 2024 blog will be open for comments after the exam (5 March 2024, 16:45)

Good luck with paper D 2024!

Our EQE blogs will be open for your comments and opinions w.r.t. the Pre-Exam, A, B, C and D shortly after the exams. We aim to post our (provisional) answers to the various papers shortly after we have received a copy of the respective exam paper.

Monday, August 14, 2023 EQE 2024 exam schedule now available: Paper D

The "Information on the schedule for the EQE 2024 examination papers" (dated 27 July 2023) is now available on the EQE website. 

The EQE 2024 will take place online using the examination software Wiseflow, with substantially the same setup as the e-EQE/Online EQE of 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Paper D 2024 is split into three parts: 

1. a first D1 part of two questions and 26 marks (1 h 35 min),
2. a second D1 part of three questions and 29 marks (1 h 45 min), and
3. a D2 part of 45 marks (2 h 40 min)

Once the time allowed for a part has elapsed, it will not be possible to go back to that part.

Note that the D1:D2 ratio is again 55:45, with more than half of the marks available for D1 and less than half for D2, so the D paper again has the emphasis on the legal questions (See here). As the first D1 part has 26 marks for only two questions, at least one of the D1 questions will be at least 13 marks and longer than ever before (D 2023 included an 11-mark question)!

W.r.t. D2, note a minor change compared to D 2023: the 45-mark D2 part now has 2 h 40 min, whereas it had 2 h 45 min in 2023 - the 5 minutes seem to have been allocated to the first D1 part.

Each part must be completed before the start of the next break, with the next part only becoming available after the break. Paper D lasts six hours.

No calendars will be provided (see here). No documents will be available for printing.

Further, in view of the amendments to Rule 126(2)/127(2)/131(2) EPC per 1 November 2023 (1 day after the legal cutoff date acc IPREE, i.e., 31 October 2023), refer to: this blog post

(Note that that the document may be subject to minor changes as testing continues. Please check the EQE website for updates)

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