Thursday, December 03, 2020 Information on the schedule for the EQE 2021 examination papers - paper D

 "Information on the schedule for the EQE 2021 examination papers" has been published in the EQE website today.

It indicates that:

"The EQE 2021 exam schedule is now available. Candidates are advised that the document may be subject to minor changes as testing continues.

The EQE 2021 will take place online using LockDown Browser. On examination days, candidates are advised to log on to the online examination system's internet platform at least 20 minutes before the start of the relevant paper.

Information on how to register and log on to the online examination system will be communicated in due course.

The pre-examination and both papers C and D will be split into parts. This means that candidates will not be free to allocate their time as they see fit across the different parts of the papers. To compensate for this restriction, the total duration of the relevant papers has been extended. Once the time allowed for a part has elapsed, it will not be possible to go back to that part."

 

Tuesday, November 10, 2020 Updates to D-book and L-book (edition June 2020, for EQE 2021)

  

 

 We have prepared documents with updates to the EQE 2021 editions (published in June 2020) of our Q&A books:

• 'Main Exam Questions for Paper D' (“D-book”)
• 'Basic Legal Questions for Pre-Exam and  Paper D' (“L-book”)

These books are updated in view of:

• Publications in OJ EPO after the Book was printed (OJ June 2020 – 31 Oct 2020);
• Publications in PCT Newsletter after the Book was printed (PCT NL June 2020 – 31 Oct 2020);
• Answers to referrals G 1/19, G 2/19 and G 3/19 
• Corrections to the questions and answers.

We thank all who provided any comments and all candidates who participated in our legal training courses, as well as those that gave feedback on our material via email, for useful feedback. Any further comments are highly appreciated (via email to TRAINING at deltapatents.com).

The latest version of these update document are available on our website (on https://www.deltapatents.com/webshop.html - L, D)

Updated papers and model solutions

Our webshop also provides:

• Updated D papers and model solutions to the D papers of 2014 - 2019 (complete D papers: DI and DII), updated for the legal texts as in force on 31 October 2020:  https://webshop.deltapatents.com/paper_d_solutions (Webshop - D Model Solutions)
   
• Especially for candidates that prepared for EQE 2020 and have already used all papers in that preparation, we prepared three DII papers, derived from earlier D papers, updated for the legal texts as in force on 31 October 2020: 
  https://webshop.deltapatents.com/paper_d_refresh (Webshop - D Refresher)
• We also offers a 1-day online refresher course for candidates who were already fully prepared for EQE 2020 and now want to refresh their knowledge and skills before sitting EQE 2021 by practicing with new material. See https://www.deltapatents.com/eqe-main-exam-paper-d.html (brochure) for information and registration.
  
  

Compilations of a selection legal texts

Also refer to our compilations of key parts of the EQE syllabus as in force on 31 October 2020 for EQE 2021 ("EQE 2021 syllabus"), which can be downloaded for free from https://www.deltapatents.com/course-links.html: 

• EQE 2021 references - EQE 
• EQE 2021 references - EPC
• EQE 2021 references - EPO and PCT
• EQE 2021 references - PCT

On the same page, also key parts of the EQE syllabus as in force on 31 October 2019 ("EQE 2020 syllabus") are also still available in view of the Decision from the Supervisory Board of 20 April 2020 to allow candidates to use the EQE 2020 syllabus as well as the EQE 2021 syllabus (see Decision from the Supervisory Board dated 20.04.2020, Communication from the Supervisory Board dated 20.04.2020 and Notice dd 10 June 2020 from the Examination Board).

Friday, January 24, 2020 Calendars for D 2020 available

The calendars for D 2020 are available on the EQE website.

The set comprises the calendars of 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Please be reminded that you need to use the calendars provided with the exam paper when answering - that version may (as you can see on the ones provided) not have all "real" EPO closure dates, in particular it may lack bridging days such as at the end of the year, as well as Monday 6 January 2020 (Epiphany/Heilige Drei Könige, which used to be in the calendars).

Tuesday, November 19, 2019 Updates to our D-book ("Main Exam Questions for Paper D"), edition July 2019 for EQE2020

Updates to our D-book (edition July 2019, for EQE2020) are available reflecting legal changes that only became known after our Questions and Answers books were published, which supersede and/or supplemente some of the legal references (OJ, case law) in our book.

Please refer to our other post.

Thursday, March 14, 2019 As of 2020 the distribution of points for parts I and II may vary

The Examination Board has posted a notice (dated 13.03.2019) with the following text on the EQE website (emphasis added):

Notice from the Examination Board of the European qualifying examination (EQE) 

Article 1(4) REE and Rule 26 IPREE specify that the purpose of Paper D is “to assess candidates' ability to answer legal questions and to draft legal assessments”. 

As of 2020 the distribution of points for parts I and II may vary between 60:40 and 40:60 for Paper D. 

How the points are to be distributed will not be announced before the examination. 

As always, the distribution of marks will be indicated on the examination paper.

For the Examination Board 
The Chairman 
Jakob Kofoed

This was already announced at the Tutor's Meeting on 18 October 2018 and in epi Information 4/2018 (page 25) - see our earlier blog post (here), which also briefly addresses the background behind this decision.

NB: D 2020 will be on 17 March 2020 (see here)

Wednesday, February 27, 2019 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:

Wednesday, February 27, 2019 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).