A close shave for paper C 2014

Paper C 2014 of the European Qualifying Examination (EQE) was held last Thursday (27.02.2014). The paper concerned razor cartridges that featured improved tension of the skin and a fencing element to avoid cutting yourself. 

First impression is that this paper is considerably harder than paper C of 2013. Priority issues played a role both in the application itself and in the prior art. Getting the effective dates and list of evidence right in this paper was the first challenge to take. 

To determining the effective dates of the claim, one had to spot that the applicant of A1 and of A6 was the same. Although this information is given twice: both in the client's letter and on the application this is easy to miss. As result the priority claim of A1 is not valid for subject matter that was previously disclosed in the priority document of A6. A6 itself could be used for attacking all claims that lost priority. Getting this wrong would cost you only one novelty attack though so this issue should be survivable. 

Below are our attacks for the claims: