DII 2019: Shoe soles

The DII paper of 2019 related to shoe soles for running shoes. Your client is a German shoe manufacturer, FASTER, whose main markets are Germany and Austria. FASTER has its only factory in Germany. Its owner found out that all metal nanoparticles modify the foam structure of a shoe, thereby improving the energy storage of the shoe sole. The increase depends on the type of material (any metal, in particular copper; Silica) and on the size of the nanoparticles. Slightly more than a year ago, your client had filed several patent applications, EP-F1, EP-F3, EP-F2.
An Australian competitor, HIKE, is also active in the field of running shoes, and has its only factory in Austria. HIKE made several announcents of the internet, and has two patents: a national Austrian patent AT-H with a broad claim scope, and a European patent EP-H which has a problem with its translation (EP-H was originally filed by a Chinese company, LONGRUN, in Chinese, and the English translation has a major error in it).
There is also a Mr Furious, a former employee of tours, who sold information to HIKE when he was angry for not getting promoted.
In this paper, analysis of priority was a key topic, and partial priority was present very pronouncedly -as expected-. Mr Furious' acts are an evident abuse against your client, and gave the opportunity to file a new application for Silica nanoparticle soles.

Below we give our answer, with a quite complete discussion as to whether priority is valid or not, what all the prior art is, novelty, inventive step, provisional protection, full protection, etc.

(For DI, see here; for general impressions to D as a whole, see here).

Our answer:

DI 2019: Entitlement, third party observations, missing claims, priority, debit accounts

The DI part of the 2019 D paper again had a variety of topics. Scoring about 20 marks in 1,5 hours or 25 marks within 2 hours seems feasible for a well-prepared candidate. How many marks one can achieve does not only depend on the legal knowledge and familiarity with the material, but also depends strongly on the strategy chosen for the D paper as a whole, especially how much time a candidate allocated for DI (some may choose to use only 1,5 hours for DI to have 4 hours for DII), how many marks were targetted, and how the candidate planned to deal with and actually dealt with difficult questions (skip or struggle, impose time limit or continue until no more ideas, ...).

We want to emphasize that our answer is not a typical answer of a candidate sitting the exam. It is the combined or at least cross-checked answer of experienced tutors. But even experienced tutors are not flawless, so our answer may not be fully complete, or even wrong as to certain aspects. We welcome any comments!

Our answers to the DI-part of the 2019 paper are given below:

(For DII, see here; for general impressions to D as a whole, see here).

D 2019: 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 D papers of 2013 - 2018 (assuming your practiced those) - DI and DII-wise: was DI similar as to its subjects and difficulty as the last few years? Was DII similar as 2013-2017 or more like 2018 with a large legal case part of the DII?
How much time did you allocate for DI, how much for DII? Which part did you do first, DI or DII?
How many marks do you expect to have scored in the DI-part, in the DII-part, and for the whole D?
What is your expectation of the pass rate and the average score? 
How did you use the additional 30 minutes that were available to to the paper? Did you use it for the DI or the DII part? How many marks do you expect to have scored extra thanks to those 30 minutes?

Were the topics well balanced in the DI-part? Was the balance between EPC and PCT right for you? Any substantive topics in DI (e.g., was partial priority tested)?
Which of the the DI Questions did you consider particularly difficult, and which relatively 'easy'?
Did you skip any DI-questions? If so, why (e.g., too difficult, allocating the time for another question, no time left)?

Were the legal issues in the DII-part well doable? Patentability? Difficult priority analysis? Non-standard claim formats? Business situation and relevance clear? Exploitation? 
Did, in your view, a single error in one of the legal issues or one of the patentability issues in DII have a big knock-on effect on the rest of the paper (the D papers of the last six years were very well designed in this respect!)?

If you participated in the pilot program to answer the exam using a computer, what were you experiences? Would you recommend it? What are the pros and cons that you experienced while doing it?

The paper and our answers

The D paper is available in all 3 languages on the EQE webpages, Compendium, D

The core of our answers will be given in two separate blog posts: one for the DI-questions and another post for the DII-part.

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!