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, 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, 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!

Friday, November 12, 2021 Calendars for EQE 2022

In the past, calendars were provided to candidates as part of the D and Pre-Exam papers. Those integrated calendars did not necessarily cover all EPO closing days. This meant that some days, on which the EPO filing offices were actually closed (e.g., bridging days), were not always indicated as closing days in the exam calendars. Candidates had to answer the papers solely on the basis of the calendars in the examination papers (see former Notice from the Examination Board dd 18 July 2013).

For EQE 2022, the situation will be different, as candidates and tutors that use Wiseflow for the Mocks currently available may already have spotted. Instead of a calendar, Wiseflow provides a pdf with information about the calendars indicating:

Important notice for candidates: Use of calendars
 
For the EQE 2022 the basis for calculating time limits are the days on which the EPO filing offices are closed as published in the Official Journal. Candidates are encouraged to have the closing days of 2020, 2021 and 2022 at hand during the examination. No calendars will be provided with the examination papers.

The Examination Board also published a Notice to this effect - see Notice dated 19 November 2021. The Notice provides (emphasis added):

Calendars are a necessary tool for calculating time limits, in particular where Rule 134(1) EPC, first sentence, applies. According to this provision, time limits expiring on a day on which at least one EPO filing office is not open for receipt of documents (closing day) are extended until the first day thereafter on which all the filing offices are open for receipt of documents and on which ordinary mail is delivered.

As of the 2022 examination, the practice concerning calendars will change: calendars will no longer be provided to candidates as part of the examination papers for the pre-examination and Paper D.

A notice listing the dates on which the EPO filing offices are closed is published each year in the Official Journal. For the purposes of applying Rule 134(1), first sentence, EPC and Rule 80.5 PCT, candidates should refer to the relevant notice on EPO closing days. They will be able to access the EPO website for this during the exam.

Candidates are allowed to use their own calendar to identify dates falling on a Saturday or Sunday. 

This notice supersedes the notice from the Examination Board dated 18 July 2013 concerning the use of calendars.

 

Friday, August 20, 2021 Detailed time schedule EQE 2022 available (Pre, C and D split into parts) & Info on Mock exams available (updated 13 January 2022)

Late June 2022, a document titled "Information on the schedule for the EQE 2022 examination papers- decision of the Supervisory Board dated 25 June 2021" was been published in the EQE website. Note that the document says that "Candidates are advised that this document may be subject to minor changes as testing continues".

Update: The document has been replaced by a new version dated 2 December 2021:
the D paper section now indicates "No calendars will be provided" - see also our other blog post.

The EQE 2022 will take place online using the same setup as the EQE of 2021. The EQE 2022 is spread over 2 weeks, starting with the D paper on 8 March 2022 and ending with the Pre-Exam on 18 March 2022 (also see here).

As with e-EQE 2021, the pre-examination and both papers C and D will be split into parts. Note that the split of paper D 2022 (26/19/55), and hence the detailed time schedule, differs from that of D 2021 (25/25/50).

Details from the document are given below.

Tuesday, April 20, 2021 New dates for EQE 2022 - spread over 2 weeks and earlier than previously announced & Enrolment for EQE 2022 - EQE 2022 will be held online

 The dates for EQE 2022 have been published on the EQE website (Notices page), here (Notice of 19 April 2021),

The complete EQE does no longer take place in a single week (in 2011: Pre-Exam on Mon, D on Tue, A on Wed, B on Thu, C on Fri), but is spread over two weeks: the main exam papers on Tue and Thu, the Pre-Exam on Fri of the second week.

Compared to the earlier announcement of 15.11.2018 (wherein the EQE was planned from 21.03.2022 to 24.03.2022), the EQE 2022 starts two weeks earlier, with the D paper on 08.03.22. 

The Pre-Exam will take place after all main exam papers, rather than on the day before the main exam.

[Update 10 May 2021:] As e-EQE 2021, the EQE 2022 will be held online and can be taken at any suitable location chosen by the candidate.The examination system Wiseflow will be used (https://europe.wiseflow.net/) (See Announcement EQE 2022)

Note: the announcement of 15.11.2018 also already included dates for EQE 2023 (06.0.2023 - 09.03.2023); these will presumably also be changed.

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Update 28 April 2021: 

Enrolment periods for EQE 2022 have been announced on the EQE website -> Enrolment. 

The webpage provides (no changes made, except added notes from the editor):

Friday, November 23, 2018 Dates of EQE 2020-2023

Now available on the EQE website:

Notice of 15 November 2018 from the Examination Secretariat with the dates of EQE 2020-2023 (PDF, 498 KB)

The exam dates move into March again for the next few years: