Paper C e-EQE 2021: first impressions?
To all who sat the C-paper today:
What are your first impressions to this year's C-paper? Any general or specific comments?
What was the effect of doing it online? Of typing your answer rather than writing it by hand? Could you benefit from being able to copy from the exam paper into your answer? And from copying parts of your answer elsewhere into your answer?
How did you experience taking the exam from your home or office location rather than in an examination center?
(How) was it different due to the due of the LockDown Browser?
What was the effect of the situation that you had to take the exam largely from the screen (as only a part could be printed) rather than from paper?
Did you experience any technical difficulties during the exam? How & how fast were they solved?
How did you handle the situation with the paper being split into two parts?
What was the effect of the paper being split into two parts?
How did you use the break?
How did this year's C-paper compare to the C papers of 2013 - 2019?
Any pleasant and/or unpleasant surprises?
The paper and our answers
[Update 7 March 2021:] A copy of the paper, together with the claims for part 2, is available here.
(We expect that the C paper will be made available in all three languages from the EQE website, Compendium, PaperC )
We give the core of our answer in a separate blog: here.
We look forward to your comments!
Comments are welcome in any official EPO language, not just English. So, comments in German and French are also very welcome!
Please do not post your comments anonymously - it is allowed, but it makes responding more difficult and rather clumsy ("Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms Anonymous of 05-03-2021 16:56"), whereas using your real name or a pseudonym is more personal, more interesting and makes a more attractive conversation. You do not need to log in or make an account - it is OK to just put your (nick) name at the end of your post.
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I did the second part in the same way. In the first part unfortunately I didn't see that A3 had also bumpers in elastomeric material. Therefore I had to make an attack for IS using A3+A5. Same for claim 3 and in claim 2 partial problems joining A3+A5+A4+A6.
ReplyDeleteDo you think it is very penalizing?
I don't see any A123(3) problem if the proprietor amends the claim to recite "17-23 or 23-35", since it is not broader than "17-35". Is there any embodiment falling inside the claim "17-23 or 23-35" but not falling inside the claim "17-35"? I don't think so; hence, A123(3) is ok. Also, the description provides basis for features of claim 5 in combination with "17-23 or 23-35", so also A123(2) is ok. I think that only claim 6 depending on claim 1 adds subject matter and contravenes A123(2) EPC.
ReplyDeleteTotally unbalanced paper. It was a challenge to read and understand more than 30 pages in the first part. As a conclusion, firstly loosing eqe 2020, secondly getting used to the online tools and finally receiving such an unbalanced paper.
ReplyDeleteHi, thank you all for sharing your comments about the C paper. I also sat the exam yesterday and would like to share some comments. Luckily for me, I had decided in advance, (knowing from previous experience that it is difficult for me to pass this exam) that it does not matter so much if I am successful or not, considering that no matter what, this will be my last try since I only have few years left until retirement. When I saw the amount of text, in the claims as well as in description and annexes with unfamiliar terms, I realized that it is no meaning to get too stressed as I will anyhow not pass. I have not encountered this much text and this feeling of impossibility to grasp it in any of the exams in the previous years. To me it is like the EPO got cold feet about allowing candidates access to the forcefulness of processing text on a computer and forgot that people also need time to understand in order to come up with a proper analysis and result. The Mock2 paper did not hint on what was to come.
ReplyDeleteThe ease of copying text also makes it easy, considering the rush you are under in the exam, to mistakenly disguise your response that would make sense with some part that is left there inadvertently from a passage of text that you copied from the GL etc. Also, there is a risk that the text is incomprehensible due to typos... I do not envy the people marking the exams. (My son says, this sounds like I am very bad at typing on the computer, which is for sure true:-))
Regarding the exam yesterday, I also have a few questions:
1. How did you handle entering the information previously provided on form 2300?
Although I had prepared in advance what to write, it took me 40 min of the time to enter my pre-prepared info and going back and forth copying info from the PDF document in another tab. (I do not know if leaving it out would have resulted in severe punishment in terms of marks or not (not that it matters for me, of course, but anyhow...)
2. Did you print papers or did you run the exam on the computer only?
3. If you had a printer, were you able to print the pages of A1 and evidence documents prior to C part 1?
I was not. My understanding from the beginning was that it should be possible, and I asked for it in the Mock2, when it was the same situation for me - there was nothing to print. Then I even waited the extra 15 minutes before entering, because I thought the start was delayed because of problem with the upload of documents. Yesterday, after the C exam, I discovered that there was a comment from EPO in the Mock2 C part 1: "Printing documents: while fine tuning the system, we noticed that the upload of the print documents was delayed. We confirm that documents for printing will be made available 10 minutes before the start of each flow of the EQE". This comment is dated 10.31 05.02.2021. It was not there when I was waiting the extra 15 min before entering the Mock2 C. Yesterday when there were no documents to print, I assumed that I had misunderstood the information and that this was as intended.
"weak because it can be overcome"!!!! Following this logic, every novelty objection is weak. In 99% of opposition proceedings, the novelty objections are always overcome by simple amendments!
ReplyDeleteReminder:
ReplyDeletePlease do not post your comments anonymously - it is allowed, but it makes responding more difficult and rather clumsy ("Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms Anonymous of 05-03-2021 16:56"), whereas using your real name or a pseudonym is more personal, more interesting and makes a more attractive conversation.
You do not need to log in or make an account - it is OK to just put your (nick) name at the end of your post.
I absolutely agree with you!!! One solution would have been to have 3,5 or 4 hours for the first part of paper C and correspondly 2,5 or 2 hours for the second part of C. It seems that EPA has not made any effort to test if the exam papers are managable to be solved within the given time. Online examination has been a big disadvantage compared to earlier examinations, at least from my point of view.
ReplyDeleteMe
ReplyDeleteA copy of the paper (claims for part 1 and part 2, pre-printable parts for part 1 and part 2) is now available via the link in the blog post.
ReplyDeleteToo bad that the exam committee was not able to make a suitable exam in an online format. Just cutting a 'paper' exam in two does not work. Normally you analyze the claims by reading the prior art in one go. In this online exam you have to read the prior art twice (once for the first set of claims and a second time for the second set of claims). This extra time you don't have, thus you miss marks.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, the prior art was to confusing. As you got too much information and all were very close and comparable, a clear strategy was missing. Again loosing too much time as the exam is not constructed well.
Wiseflow appears not to be a suitable platform for an exam like Paper C. You are constantly switching between your workscreen with unscrollable screen, PDF tab, and the paper print out. This results in inefficient work. Just loosing time due to the set up of the program.
By the switching, the overview is gone, which does not help during the exam.
Too bad that the exam committee did not check whether or not the format as presented was suitable. As mentioned during the information sessions, the Mocks were not made by the exam committee (but EPI) and were to check the environment, and were not representative for the real papers. Thus they failed to test a suitable online paper format. Unfortunately, the candidates will pay for the issues of the paper.
I definitively agree with you and this is inadmissible !
DeleteNot only that, but the tank of A5 does not correpond to the definition of reservoir given in A1. A1 states that water can be pumped out of the compartment. In A5 only the petroleum can be pumpted out. The water is pushed out by the membrane but you cannot pump it out.
ReplyDeleteThis exam lost its connection with the real purpose of the exam. The first part was a speed reading contest and putting non-native speakers behind. On top of that a fairly complex topic, 6 docs to be read in the first part, some traps/difficulties in the first part, struggling with typing in 1 screen and 3 attacks and no possibility to correct yourself in the second part. I lost all points in the first part because of the rush and saw my mistakes in the second part. Then lost my focus because of frustration and destroyed the rest of the paper............SUmmary of my C paper.
ReplyDeleteYou are not the only one in this situation. I was too !
DeleteI know someone who was contacted by the EQE about their conduct. I hope you did not swear in front of the camera or something. It is not considered part of being fit for practice.
DeleteWhen I saw that the character names were the same as for a past test, I had to:
ReplyDelete1) do a sanity check to make sure I wasn't hallucinating or having another EQE dream
2) wonder if the EPO had yet another problem with the documents
3) attempt to remember all of the test subjects from 2011 to 2019 to figure out whether I had received good documents or bad documents
4) attempt to compose myself enough to begin sorting through the annexes
NOT NICE EPO!
I did the same !
DeleteAdded matter under Art.123(2) relates to amendments of the application /patent itself.
ReplyDeleteIt does NOT relate to a change compared to the priority document(s) - that is Art.76(1) and that just affects the validity of priority (or of partial priority).
It's only a matter of time before we have to do an opposition on some sort of an encabulator....
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac7G7xOG2Ag
Are you out of your mind??? If an EQE committee member sees that, it will be part of 2023's paper for sure! Still, won't be as bad as 2021 !
Delete