Mock A under exam conditions on 6 December 2021 (and on 3 Feb 2022)

A mock A exam under exam conditions allowing you to test the updated WISEflow version with video/audio invigilation is available on 6 December 2021. See here.

The main purpose of the December Mocks is to test your equipment and settings, including camera and audio.

You can practice the papers at a later moment, as they will again be made available as Mock papers for a longer period, but without invigilation.

It has also been announced by email from the EQE secretariat to all candidates that, i a further mock under exam conditions will be conducted on 3 February 2022The purpose of this mock is to check your equipment and settings. This mock will not contain a new paper, but a known paper used in the currently open mocks. 

Please feel invited to post your experiences with the Mock and the platform, comments and tips as comments to this blog. It is appreciated if you use your name or a nickname in your post, for easy reference (you can use the Anonymous option and close the message with your name, or use the google account or name option).

Our attempt at e-EQE Paper A 2021 - Coated engine components

Here is our quick first attempt at the claims (ignoring formal aspects).

We note that this claim set has two independent claims drawn to a method of manufacturing the claimed product. We considered including the (e-beam and plasma spraying) methods described by the client in a single claim, but decided to err on the safe side and claim both methods separately.

We welcome your comments. (Click "Read more" to see all 15 claims and all comments)

You may also wish to check our First impressions blog and the comments thereto - here
The complete A-paper is available here.


The DeltaPatents team

Jelle, Nico, Sander, Roel and Jessica


Claims 

 

1.  A coated engine component (10, 20) comprising a substrate (11, 21) coated with a ceramic oxide layer (13, 23), 

  • wherein the substrate (11, 21) is made of a superalloy, 

  • wherein the ceramic oxide is a metal oxide that melts at a temperature higher than 1600°C, 

  • wherein the ceramic oxide layer haa thickness of at least 25 micrometre, 

  • wherein the ceramic oxide layer has a columnar microstructure comprising columns with spaces (15a, 15b, 25) between the columns (14a, 14b, 14c, 24a, 24b), and 

  • wherein the angle between the columns (14a, 14b, 14c, 24a, 24b) and the surface of the substrate (11, 21) is between 75 and 105 degrees. 

 

2. The engine component (10, 20) according to claim 1, further comprising an adhesion layer (12, 22) between the substrate and the ceramic oxide layer, wherein the adhesion layer is a nickel or cobalt alloy containing 10-50 wt.% of aluminium and up to 25 wt.% of chromium or yttrium. 

Paper A e-EQE 2021: first impressions?

To all who sat the A-paper today:

What are your first impressions to this year's A-paper?
Any general or specific comments?
Surprising elements in the client's letter and the prior art?

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?

Did you have enough time?
How many marks do you expect to have scored?

What is your expectation of the pass rate and the average score?

How did this year's paper compare to the papers of the last few years?
Similar difficulty level?
Could you find the wording for claim features in the clients letter and the prior art?
Was the subject-matter well understandable, for chemists as well as e/m candidates?
Multiple independent claims? Functional features?

The paper and our answers

Copies of the paper will be provided on this blog as soon as we have received copies of the papers, preferably in all three languages (English, French and German). Should you have a copy, please send it to any of our tutors or to training@deltapatents.com.

The core of our answers will be given as soon as possible in a separate blog post.

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 04-03-2021 23:24"), whereas using your real name or a nick nameis 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.

Please post your comments as to first impressions and general remarks to this blog.
Please post responses to our answer (as soon as available) to the separate blog post with our answer.
Thanks!

Update:

Paper A 2021 blog will open after the end of the exam, 3 March 2021 13:30

Good luck with paper A!

Our EQE blogs will be open for your comments and opinions w.r.t. the Pre-ExamABand shortly after the exams. We will post our (provisional) answers to the various papers shortly after the exam. 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 the breach of the exam regulations, instructions to the candidates, code of conducts, etc (see, e.g.,  e-EQE website and the emails from the EQE secretariat).

All candidates, as well as tutors who helped candidates prepare for EQE 2021, are invited to contribute to the discussions on our EQE blogs! You can post your comments in English, French or German. You are invited to post your comments under your real name, but it is also possible to use a nickname if you wish to hide your identify.

The DeltaPatents team

 NB: you can not comment to this blog post; comments will be accepted from a new blog post as of 13:30

Mock 2's Paper A (3 Feb 2021)

"To allow candidates to test the system also close to the real examination conditions, a second mock (Mock 2) is planned for the week of 1 to 5 February 2021. The examination papers will take place during that week at the same week days and times as the real examination, see here." (see e-EQE webpage)

Today, 3 February 2021, Paper A of Mock 2 was organized, using the Wiseflow platform which will be used for the e-EQE 2021 in the week of 1-5 March 2021.

The epi Mock 2 Paper A is based on Paper A (CHEM) 2010with:

(i)   a few paragraphs omitted, 
(ii)  essential features expressed more explicitly,
(iii) chemical formulas spelled out.

The epi version of the paper (amended compared to the original) and the epi Compendium can be found on the epi website: here.


Addition (03-FEB-21, 4.40 PM; JK): some of you will have noticed that you should rapidly get rid of your persistent ALT-TAB habits. Hit it twice and you will be expelled from Lockdown.

Key combinations that you can safely use are CTRL-A, B, C, F, I, U, V, X, Y, Z and CTRL-SHIFT-V.
CTRL-SHIFT-V is very useful for pasting text copied from the letter/prior art PDFs without the formatting of the PDFs (such as hard line breaks).

General tips:
  • You can open multiple tabs with the paper (Assignment), so this may help in simultaneously navigating within different sections, e.g., tab-1: clients letter, tab-2: D1, tab-3: D2
  • Use a small size font for typing in your answer, this helps in keeping an organized view in the editor
  • By using the various "header" styles of the editor, a table of contents is automatically created; however, it seems that jumping between various sections created by these headers does not work for everyone
  • Don't waste time on building an overview of all features - effects - fallback positions in the editor. We still recommend organizing all information from the client's letter and the prior art on paper - as you would have done for the all-paper exam. The search option within the PDF browser may facilitate checking for features  - including any indications of essential features ("must", "essential", "required" etc.) and advantages.

Please share your experiences with the platform, as well as any comments to the paper.

We allow you to post your comments anonymously, but it is recommended and appreciated if you identify yourself using your true name or a nick name - that makes communication much more pleasant and efficient than talking to "Anonymous 19 January 2021 22:23" and alike. 
Please refer to the "Problems with commenting" link on the top right of this blog page if you have problems with commenting (which may occur due to security settings, cookies, etc, esp when using Captcha with anonymous posts).

A paper in e-EQE 2021

The EQE of 2021 will be conducted online (Annoucement). 

Important information was given in “Information on the schedule for the EQE 2021 examination papers” (link) of 2 December 2020 provides. 

The "Information" provides:

General

The EQE 2021 exam schedule is now available. Candidates are advised that this document may be subject to minor changes as testing continues.

The EQE 2021 will take place online using LockDown Browser. On examination days, candidates are advised to log on to the online examination system's internet platform at least 20 minutes before the start of the relevant paper. Information on how to register and log on to the online examination system will be communicated in due course.


Paper A – Wednesday 3 March 2021

Paper A will have the same syllabus and character as before. 

Paper A lasts four hours. [Note from the editor: this corresponds to the 3,5 hours from Rule 23(1) IPREE plus the additional 30 minutes from the Decision of the Supervisory Board of 17 November 2016]

Candidates will be allowed to print the prior-art documents and the drawings of the application, but not the letter of the applicant. The documents allowed for printing will be made available approximately ten minutes before the start of the examination.

Part            Content      Time        CET time

Paper A     Full paper    4 hours    9.30-13.30 hrs

Candidates may take unscheduled breaks. Further instructions relating to taking unscheduled breaks will be communicated at a later stage. It should be noted, however, that the exam clock will continue to run during unscheduled breaks, i.e. the examination will not be stopped.

The exam platform is available since late December, and a first set of exam papers (earlier EQE papers) was made available as Mock 1 paper to allow candidates to familiarize with the system (see here and our blog post here).

To allow candidates to test the system also close to the real examination conditions, a second mock (Mock 2) is planned for the week of 1 to 5 February 2021. (see here and our blog post here).

A FAQ provides additional information for the e-EQE in general.

Also note the information given in the e-EQE tutorials/ information sessions (recording available on the e-EQE website); see our blog post here for some highlights of the session of 14 January 2021.


Paper A details

Mock 1 (see comments to our blog on Mock 1) gives an example as to what is printable and what not:
  • the clients letter is only available online (pdf); the clients letter can not be printed;
  • the drawings of clients letter are available for printing in advance (as well as in the pdf during the exam)
  • the prior art is available for printing in advance (as well as in the pdf during the exam)