Sunday, December 17, 2023 REE for New EQE adopted by Admin Council (Updated 29/2/2024: IPREE for New EQE published)

This Thursday, 14 December 2023, the Administrative Council of the EPO adopted, unanimously, the new "Regulation on the European qualifying examination for professional representatives" (REE) for the New EQE (CA/D 25/23). The Implementing Regulations thereto are expected to be adapted by the Supervisory Board of the EQE in the coming week(s). The new REE enters into forms on 1 January 2025 and will supersede those of 2009. The new REE, together with the IPREE, contains details transitional provisions.

EQE 2024 will still be conducted under the current provisions, i.e., with a Pre-Exam and papers A, B, C and D.

The new papers of the New EQE will be gradually introduced as of 2025 (Art. 27 REE):
- a new Foundation paper in 2025,
- new Main exam papers M1 and M2 in 2026, and
- new Main exam papers M3 and M4 in 2027.

The EQEs of 2025 and 2026 will also still comprise the current A, B, C and D papers for those candidates eligible for those papers and wanting to take those (unless they have already enrolled for a New EQE paper, in which case they need to continue in the New EQE system).

For the current EQE, sitting the Pre-Exam requires a 2-year full-time supervised training period for patent attorney trainees (" including taking part in a wide range of activities pertaining to European patent applications or European patents") and 3 years for EPO examiners, and sitting the A, B, C and D papers requires 3-year full-time supervised training for patent attorney trainees and 4 yrs for examiners.
For the New EQE, the required training periods are the same for patent attorney trainees and for EPO examiners (Art. 11 REE):

- the new Foundation paper requires at least 1 yr of full-time supervised training,
- the new Main exam papers M1 and M2 requires 2 yrs of full-time supervised training, and
- the new Main exam papers M3 and M4 requires 3 yrs of full-time supervised training.

DeltaPatents will provide Foundation Integrated & Foundation Distance Learning courses to allow candidate to prepare thoroughly for the the legal part as well as the claims part of the Foundation paper of 2025 (see below).

Wednesday, October 11, 2023 EQE 2024: results will be available in July 2024

Yesterday, the Examination Board published a notice "EQE 2024: Publication of results" on the EQE website reading:

FYI: Art. 48(2) UPCA provides: "Parties may alternatively be represented by European Patent Attorneys who are entitled to act as professional representatives before the European Patent Office pursuant to Article 134 of the EPC and who have appropriate qualifications such as a European Patent Litigation Certificate." The direct relation to the availability of the results from the EQE is not clear to me, as entitlement to act as professional representative does not depend on the passing of the EQE as such, but to the entry on the list of representatives - which must still be requested after passing (here).

Monday, August 14, 2023 Dates for EQE 2025 published

The dates for EQE 2025 have been published on the EQE website (notice of 20 July 2023):

The time schedule is similar as that of EQE 2024 and 2023, with the papers in the sequence D-A-B-C-Pre-Exam, and again showing at least one day in between successive main exam papers. It seems likely that the exam will again use WiseFlow and -for the main exam- the FlowLock editor/browser.

The published schedule provides for papers Pre-Exam, A, B, C and D, so it seems to be an EQE of the current format. 

Monday, August 14, 2023 EQE 2024 exam schedule now available

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

Please feel invited to post to our blogs for the respective papers if you wish to comment on the EQE 2024 schedule:

• Blog Schedule Pre-Exam 2024
• Blog Schedule Paper D 2024
• Blog Schedule Paper A 2024
• Blog Schedule Paper B 2024
• Blog Schedule Paper C 2024

Tuesday, July 04, 2023 EQE 2023 results available in MyEQE -- (update:) and statistics

EQE 2023 main exam candidates have received their results today (4 July).

Congratulations to all that passed one or more papers! 🥂🍾🎈🥳💐

And to those that passed the complete EQE, in first and single sit or spread over several years: double congratulations: if you are a patent attorney trainee, you are just a request for entry on the list (and the decision to grant that request) away from being a European Patent Attorney (professional representative on the list). Hope to meet you at some EPO, epi or other kind of event in the future!

Update 5 July 11:30: The Examiner's Reports are not yet available (except that for paper A, available 4 July late afternoon). nor are the statistics.

Update 5 July 15:20: The Examiner's Reports are available on the Compendium pages; However, statistics are not yet available.

Update 6&11 July: The Candidate's answers are now also available on the Compendium pages. As you may see on LinkedIn, the English Candidate's answer for D 2023 is from one of "our" candidates: nice compliment Laura, to have been selected (also for us as your tutors ;)) We are also proud that also the German Candidate's answer for D is from one of "our" candidates of our courses in German. And... also the French Candidate's answer for D is from one of "our" candidates of our courses in French!🥂🍾

Update 11 July 11:40: Still no statistics yet for Pre-Exam nor main exam papers. Candidates asked me when to expect them - I do not know either, but I can give historical data. Statistics were published for Pre-Exam and main exam at the same time. For EQE 2022 the statistics were available quickly, the day after the main exam results. But for EQE 2021, the results letters for the main exam were send to the candidates on 21 June while the statistics came out only on 6 July.

Update 14 August: The statistics have been published late July (dated 18 July 2023)!

Pre-Exam 2023: 519 candidates,  84,78 % pass, 15,33 % fail 

Paper A 2023: 873 candidates, 70,56% pass, 4,35 % compensable fail, 25,09 % fail

Paper B 2023: 820 candidates, 61,52% pass, 9,17 %  compensable fail,  29,31 % fail

Paper C 2023: 1176 candidates, 54,08 % pass, 12,08 % compensable fail, 33,84 % fail

Paper D 2023: 836 candidates, 38,28 % pass, 10,29 % compensable fail, 51,43% fail 

Monday, July 03, 2023 No 10 days anymore for EQE 2024 - unless you really want to (or stick to the version as defined in the REE/IPREE)!

The Supervisory Board of the EQE issued a decision on "Notification and time limit calculation" dated 26 June 2023:

For more details and your comments:

• For Pre-Exam 2024: see here
• For Paper D 2024: see here

Thursday, March 23, 2023 EPO News message "European qualifying examination 2023 completed"

Today, the EPO published the News message show below (no changes made, except for emphasis added):

• [begin  citation]

European qualifying examination 2023 completed

23 March 2023    

This year's European qualifying examination (EQE) ran from 6 to 13 March [note from the blog editor: actually, from 7 to 17 March 2023]. In total, 2 148 candidates of 58 nationalities participated and almost 40% of candidates were women. All in all, the four papers that each candidate can sit, plus the pre-exam paper, last a combined total of 24 hours and are simultaneously available in German, English and French.   

Monday, March 06, 2023 Good luck to all EQE 2023 candidates - main exam and Pre-Exam!

 

We wish all candidates that will sit one or more EQE papers this and/or next week 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 respective exam. 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.,  EQE homepage, EQE notices, EQE online website, MyEQE, and the emails from the EQE secretariat).

Tuesday, January 17, 2023 Getting well-prepared for EQE 2023 - opportunities for candidates to test their system and exam platform under exam conditions

REMINDER: This Thursday, and again mid February, candidates have the opportunity to test their system and exam platform under exam conditions (Main exam as well as Pre-Exam). 

It is strongly recommended, if not indispensable, to use those opportunities, and to do the test with the full system (computer, camera, microphone, internet connection) and at the location that you intend to use for the EQE itself.

Only these tests allow you to check the system under exam conditions, so including the invigilation/ proctoring/ supervision functionality. In the past, some candidates experiences some problems only with this full setup, e.g., due to some actions such as using Alt-Tab being considered as attempts to cheat, so it is important to not miss out on these opportunities!

Candidates are referred to the email they received from the EQE Secretariat mid December, which provided (for Pre-Exam as well as main exam candidates):

Dear candidate,

Please be informed that the instructions to candidates for the conduct of the EQE 2023 are now available on the EQE website.

Please also note that you will be able to test your computer equipment and settings on the following dates:

19 January 2023 at 9:30 – 10:30 and 14:00 – 15:00 CET and

15 February 2023 at 9:30 – 10:30 and 14:00 – 15:00 CET.

It is recommended to take advantage of these technical tests under examination conditions. We strongly advise you not to wait until the last moment to test in case you encounter problems.

Further information will follow in January 2023.

If you have not yet activated your WISEflow account, please urgently do so or inform us in case of problems.

Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Sincères salutations

European Qualifying Examination EQE