Tuesday, October 11, 2022 Annual meeting of EQE tutors and members of the EQE committees ("Tutor meeting") on EQE 2022 - Dates and registration

Today, the annual meeting of EQE tutors and members of the EQE committees ("Tutor meeting") on EQE 2022 has been announced op the epi website.

Tutors that prepared candidates for the Pre-Exam 2022 and main exam papers 2022 meet with members of the EQE committees and the Examination Board, online, on 8-9 November 2022, to discuss the exam papers. The meeting is organised by the Secretariat of the European Qualifying Examination (EQE) in cooperation with epi.

For full details and registration for the meeting, as well as for Wiseflow access for EQE 2023 preparation, see the News message on the epi Website here and the survey here. It is indicated that, "In November, the Wiseflow system will be operational again, and, if you are interested in receiving access to the Wiseflow system to see the examination papers (past papers & epi Mock papers) as the candidates would see them to support your candidates towards EQE 2023 better, please check the appropriate box [in] Q8 in the survey [below]. The access link to the Wiseflow system will be sent by separate email in November."

Registration is open until 1 November 2022.

NB: For the tutor's report on the EQE 2021 papers and meeting, refer to epi Information 4/2021. A similar report will be published for the EQE 2022 papers and meeting in epi Information 4/2022.

Wednesday, September 28, 2022 EQE 2023 exam schedule now available

The "Information on the schedule for the EQE 2023 examination papers" is now available on the EQE website. 

The various schedules are addressed in our blogs for the schedules respective papers:

• Pre-Exam 2023
• Paper A 2023
• Paper B 2023
• Paper C 2023
• Paper D 2023

Monday, September 26, 2022 Dates for EQE 2024

The dates for EQE 2024 have been published on the EPO website (link).

It shows Pre-Exam, A, B, C and D, so it seems to be an EQE of the current format. 

The time schedule again shows at least one day in between successive main exam paper. It seems likely that the exam will again use WiseFlow and -for the main exam- the FlowLock editor/browser.

Comment: If discussions about the New EQE, following the consultation that closed 31 Aug, converge quickly, I can imagine that there may be exams for the New EQE Fundamentals in Q.3 or Q.4 2024, or that they will replace the Pre-Exam as of March 2025. However, no time of introduction of the New EQE, nor any transitional provisions, have been published to date (26 Sep 2022).

NB: The dates for EQE 2023 can be found here.

Friday, September 23, 2022 D 45/21 - EQE appeal on complaints that were not decided upon

In this appeal, a candidate contests the marking of Papers B, C and D of the e-EQE 2021. The candidate submitted in the grounds of appeal that there had been severe technical problems with the examination software during the examination of Papers B, C and D of the e-EQE 2021. The problems had reduced the time available for answering the papers and caused the appellant extreme stress and considerable psychological disadvantages. This had led to serious disadvantages compared to other candidates who had not experienced these problems. He further submitted that he "filed a complaint on the same day of the examination of Paper D, stating all the problems [he] experienced and the actions [he] took to report and receive help from the invigilators to solve the problems" and similarly for paper C. However, he had not received any answer to these two complaints. The Board considered that "The Examination Board was therefore obliged under Rule 19(4) IPREE to take a written and reasoned decision on the appellant's complaint regarding the alleged disturbances during the examination of Papers D and C, considering all the available evidence. However, no such reasoned decision was taken at any time". The Board remitted to the Examination Board for a new decision to be taken regarding Papers C and D, to let the Examination Board decide whether the complaint is unfounded or well founded, with -respectively- reasons or an appropriate compensation.

W.r.t. the lack of a complaint w.r.t. paper B, the Board indicates that "raising complaints about alleged disturbances during the examination only by way of an appeal before the Disciplinary Board of Appeal, i.e. without any prior decision of the Examination Board under Rule 19(4) IPREE, is not acceptablee" as it would deprive the Examination Board of the opportunity to determine the exact circumstances involved and to react accordingly, if necessary with a decision pursuant to Rule 19(4) IPREE, or to deal with the allegations in its decision on the result of the examination under Article 6(5) REE. "It is contradictory to exclude the assessment of late-filed facts by the Examination Board under Rule 19(3) IPREE but allow the submission and the legal evaluation of these facts in appeal proceedings."

Friday, July 15, 2022 EPO announced the first EPAC exam for paralegals, patent administrators and formalities officers on 12 December 2022

Yesterday, it was announced that the EPO introduces a new certification scheme for patent administrators: EPAC.

DeltaPatents will offer a course in Q3-Q4 2022 covering the EPAC syllabus for candidates that plan to sit EPAC 2022 (exam on 12 December 2022). Our detailed course offering will be provided on our website in the course of July. Please monitor our website for our detailed announcement and enrollment to the course.

Please refer to our blog on the EPAC announcement in our Patent Procedure blog for more details.

NB: it is not possible to post comments to this brief blog post in the EQE section. Please post any comments to our blog on the EPAC announcement.

Wednesday, July 06, 2022 EQE 2022 results available (main exam)

Today, candidates have received the results letters for EQE 2022. 

We congratulate all candidates that passed one or more papers, as well as those that got compensable fails and have the possibility for sufficient compensation.

Please feel invited to post your comments to this blog, preferably using your name or a nickname to facilitate communication.

The Examiner's Reports are also available in the Compendium.

If you want to address specific elements of specific papers, posting comments to the dedicated blogs is suggested; these are available via these links: A 2022, B 2022, C 2022, D1 2022, D2 2022.

Update 7/7/2022:

The statistics have been published!

Pre-Exam 2022: 680 candidates, 96,76% pass, 3,24% fail   - note: Part 3, 25 mark, was neutralized

Paper A 2022: 886 candidates, 59,82 % pass, 13.09 % compensable fail, 27,09 % fail

Paper B 2022: 1158 candidates, 77,55 % pass, 6,74 %  compensable fail,  15,72 % fail

Paper C 2022: 1400 candidates, 49,14 % pass, 12,07 % compensable fail, 38,79 % fail

Paper D 2022: 704 candidates, 62,64 % pass, 8,52 % compensable fail, 28,84% fail - see below

Friday, May 13, 2022 New EQE - Proposal available and consultation has started (incl model papers) [updated 7 June]

A new section is now available on the EQE website preseneting a proposal for the new EQE and announcing that an open consultation will be launched to enable all interested parties to give their feedback on it. As a first step, the concept of the new EQE is presented on the new EQE webpage.

Documentation is presented together with a complete set of mock papers for the various modules in the Wiseflow system (after registration), as well as in pdf. Feedback will be collected by means of a questionnaire for all interested people and parties.

The website provides the following [emphasis added; some small editorial changes made; figures added]:

"New EQE - Proposal and consultation

A proposal for the new EQE is now available and an open consultation will be launched to enable all interested parties to give their feedback on it. As a first step, the concept of the new EQE is presented.

The consultation will be launched in the second half of May and will remain open until 15 July 2022 [15/7/2022: extended to 31 August]. To be able to access the model papers, please register via the link under "Model papers" below. Feedback will be collected by means of a questionnaire. The answers to the questionnaire will be evaluated by the EPO-epi working group.

Friday, March 04, 2022 Good luck to all EQE 2022 candidates (main exam and Pre-Exam)!

We wish all candidates that will sit one or more EQE papers in the next two weeks good luck / bonne chance / gute Fahrt!

Our EQE blogs will be open for your comments and opinions w.r.t. the A, B, C and D main exam and the Pre-Exam paper immediately after the exams. We will post our (provisional) answers to the various papers in separate blog posts shortly after we have received copies of the exam papers. To facilitate the discussions, we will also post copies of the papers as soon as possible after we received reasonably clean copies. 

Do not post any comments as to the merits of the answers of a certain exam paper/flow on the blogs while an exam/flow is still ongoing. Also, do not post the invigilator password or anything else that may be considered a breach of the exam regulations, instructions to the candidates, code of conducts, etc (see, e.g.,  Online EQE website, myEQE and the emails from the EQE secretariat).

Tuesday, March 01, 2022 New instructions to candidates for EQE 2022, new myEQE notice, comments on Wiseflow (annotation)

 In the Official Journal published yesterday, two new notices in respect to the EQE were published:

• Instructions to candidates concerning the conduct of the European qualifying examination - OJ 2022, A20 (superseding OJ 2021, A13 per 4/2/2022; which superseded the Instructions in OJ Suppl 2./2019)
   
• Notice from the Examination Secretariat for the European qualifying examination (on MyEQE) - OJ 2022, A21 (superseding OJ 2020, A140)

I also added some observations of unexpected behaviour of the annotation function in Wiseflow at the end of this post.

Note that the Wiseflow Mocks are only available until 6 March 2022 (I assume to prevent any possible confusion between Mocks and real EQE flows)! So if you want to do some further testing in Wiseflow, do not wait until the day before your exam paper!