Paper A basics
Updated on 8 August 2023
This is a summary about Paper A.
I have also published my summaries of the other Papers:
See Paper B basics here.
See Paper C basics here.
See Paper D basics here.
I have also published my template prepared for Paper A, click here to see it.
Paper A
Length: 4 hrs. (used to be 3.5 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.
Start time: 9:30 CET (7 March 2024)
Topic: Drafting claims and the introductory part of a patent application.
(Since 2017, there is no mechanical and chemical paper A.)
Marks: 100 points, from which the independent claims are worth about 60-75 marks and are therefore crucial for passing this paper. The introductory part is worth around 15 marks. Dependent claims are each worth 1-3 marks.
Documents that you get as part of Paper A: Client’s letter and prior art. (2-3 prior art documents are described in Paper A that you have to take into account. A prior art can also be described at the beginning of the client’s letter. The claims you hand in must be novel and inventive over the prior art, see below.)
Documents that can be printed: 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 at the latest ten minutes before the start of the examination.
Your own knowledge must not be used. Everything (definitions, etc.) required to pass the Paper will be described in the client’s letter or in the prior art documents provided.
Claims
You should draft 15 claims. The claims above 15 will not be marked. If you draft less, you lose valuable points.
The drafted claims must:
be novel,
If a claim is obviously not novel over the prior art provided in the Paper, it might be that you get no marks for that claim at all.be inventive,
If a claim is not inventive, you can lose 50% or more of the available marks, which can even reach 30 marks for an independent claim.be clear,
For each clarity problem you can lose some points. Altogether, lack of clarity can lose you up to about 50 percent of the marks available for that claim.be unitary,
include all essential features,
If you don’t add an essential feature to the independent claim, the claim will be heavily penalised. These features are usually described by the client with words like “must”, “is” “involves”, “has”, “required”, etc. The optional features are usually described by the client with words like “may”, “might”, “can”, “preferred”still be as broad as possible,
Major unnecessary limitations will cost you a lot (50-75% of the available marks for a claim can be deducted), while minor unnecessary limitations are generally penalised less severely (33-40% of the marks can be lost).cover all embodiments mentioned by the client,
All embodiments described by the client have to be covered by the independent claims as a whole, it usually must be done via a single independent product claim. (A good practice for this is 2013 Paper A E/M). Best fall-back positions and the products that the client wants to commercialise should be in dependent claims. Usually, the embodiments illustrated in the Figs. should also be defined in dependent claims.have correct dependencies.
Do not always refer back only to claim 1, and do not simply refer back always to “any of preceding claims”. In Paper A, there are always features that cannot work together, so you have to be careful with the dependencies.
The goal is to provide the best possible scope of protection for the client that is also novel and inventive. For the EQE, we have to draft a claim that could go through to grant; not the type of claim we draft for clients in real life. We also have to follow the client’s wish, you will be told what they wish to protect (or sell, etc.).
You cannot get minus points for a claim in total. However, you can get minus points for lack of novelty or unclear terms.
In this new type of mixed Paper (that is used since 2017), using two-part form is not a must as long as you state in the introductory part how your claim differs from D1 and D2.
Do not create new terms for the invention. You can simply copy (literally copy - Hurrah online EQE!) the expressions from the client’s letter. Really, there is no need for thinking of new names for the features, you will not only lose time but confuse the person who corrects your Paper.
Also, look for language in the client’s letter that looks like a claim (“we are thinking of a method of manufacturing our device…”), you might be able to use it.
And finally, an important note to myself: do not overcomplicate the claims. Each word in excess of the minimum necessary could lose marks, and also makes it more difficult to mark your claim.
Introductory part of description
Shortly describe (many sentences you can simply copy and paste from the client’s letter):
Technical field
Background
Prior art: D1 + disadvantage of D1 (comparing to our invention)
D2 + disadvantage of D2 (comparing to our invention)
Problem solved by our invention, pointing to our independent claims
According to these independent claims... - more details of the invention according to the independent claim
A short reference to the dependent claims (another advantageous embodiments...)
Summary
Paper A is probably the most simple Paper, where time is not a huge issue either. However, you will notice in the Examiner’s report that mistakes can cost a lot, every unnecessary limitation may cost you 5-10 marks, bigger mistakes even more, like 20 marks. So, it is very simple to lose many marks in Paper A.
If you find yourself thinking about adding another feature to claim 1, because you are not sure if your claim is novel, you should add the feature, since an unnecessary limitation costs you less marks comparing to what you can lose if your claim is not novel.
Most people will say that Paper A is the easiest out of the main exams. For some candidates, this might be true, since at least the time is more or less enough. However, for candidates who do not have much experience with drafting Paper A can be quite difficult. For me, the threat of getting minus marks (e.g. for limitations) was frustrating.
If you are interested in my Paper A methodology, you can purchase any of the recordings of my real-time Paper A methodology demonstrations below. I showed both 2019 and 2021 Paper A to candidates last year.
Please keep in mind that this is my summary, and my blog is not the official source for the EQE. Do not forget to also check the EPO’s website about updates.