Study Guide
Modified on September 5, 2008 • Written by mypatentbar
I hope that the following study guide is helpful as you prepare for the patent bar exam. If you are aware of any specific rules tested on past exams or reported by the forum that are not currently included in this outline, please add the relevant subject matter under “comments” to the appropriate section. Even if the information is already part of this study guide, stressing popular topics will also be helpful to everyone studying for the exam. Thanks and best of luck with your preparation.
PART 1 - Introduction
1) Prometric Patent Bar Exam
PART 2 - MPEP 2100
2) 35 USC 101
3) 35 USC 102 (a),(b),(c),(d),(e),(f) and (g)
4) 35 USC 103
5) 35 USC 112 (1st, 2nd and 6th paragraphs)
6) Patentable Subject Matter (MPEP 2100)
PART 3 - Other Patents
7) Design Patents (MPEP 1500)
8) Plant Patents (MPEP 1600)
9) Biotechnology (MPEP 2400)
PART 4 - Applications
10) Examination (MPEP 700)
11) Parts, Form, and Content (MPEP 600)
12) Type and Status (MPEP 200)
PART 5 - Everything Else
13) Secrecy, Access, National Security & Foreign Filing (MPEP 100)
14) Ownership and Assignment (MPEP 300)
15) Representative of Inventor or Owner (MPEP 400)
16) Receipt and Handling of Mail and Papers (MPEP 500)
17) Restriction and Double Patenting (MPEP 800)
18) Classification and Search (MPEP 900)
19) Matters Decided by PTO Officials - Petitions (MPEP 1000)
20) SIR (MPEP 1100)
21) Appeal (MPEP 1200)
22) Allowance and Issue (MPEP 1300)
23) Correction of Patents (MPEP 1400)
24) Document Disclosure Program (MPEP 1700)
25) PCT (MPEP 1800)
26) Protests (MPEP 1900)
27) Duty of Disclosure (MPEP 2000)
28) Citation of Prioir Art and Ex Parte Reexam (MPEP 2200)
29) Interferences (MPEP 2300)
30) Maintenance Fees (MPEP 2500)
31) Reexam (Inter Parte) (MPEP 2600)
32) Patent Terms and Extensions (MPEP 2700)
Hello,
I have been reviewing this website for a couple weeks and have learned a lot. What happened to the rest of the modules? It looks as though this project was never completed. Do you have any further modules which you have not published that I might use for patent bar review?
Do you know of any other sites - besides the links you’ve listed here - that I can use to review?
I greatly appreciate your site and have benefitted greatly from your work. I hope it will continue. Have you considered posting “ads by google” on the site to generate income from the traffic to your site? I hope to hear from you soon and look forward to seeing any additional materials or websites you can recommend. Thank you!
Mark.
Question via email -
What is the difference between MPEP 2100 and 700?
As a broad generalization, MPEP 700 deals more with hard rules and procedures (e.g., a publication with this priority chain is 102(e) art as of this date), whereas MPEP 2100 deals more with standards that are applied when determining patentability (e.g., what makes a particular invention “obvious”).
Just a quick note to say thank you for a wonderful and informative site, which I found yesterday. I am busy preparing for the Patent Bar at this moment and the info on your site is very helpful with the study - goodness knows that this stuff is tedious to say the least.
Thanks again - the site is much appreciated.
I am sorry that I did not come across this site earlier.
A fantastic resource for someone, like myself, who is studying for the patent bar.
Activity seems to have stopped on December 2007?
Dan
Thanks Dan,
I have been really busy and studying for the patent bar was pushed further down “the list” the past several months. I plan on resuming my studies and the site next week.
I took the exam yesterday and passed. I’d say a fair 25%-33% of the questions were straight from previous tests that I had seen while taking the PRG ExamWare tests. The following questions were on mine:
1. The mirror question. The question is which of the following subject to a rejection under 112? The answer choices were, (i) while the spec discloses only a mirror, you can replace “mirror” in a claim with a “reflective material” since the reflective nature is inherent; (ii) you can replace mirror in the spec with the dictionary definition; and some others… I think that the answer is the first one since reflective material is probably not enabled by picking a single reflective material.
2. I had a weird question about which of three things could a copy of a signature be used: amendment under 1.111, authorization to charge a credit card, or an oath or dec.
3. I had the claiming priority to french phone design patent.
4. The hairgel question (with Buzz, not einstein). This question asked about product brochure of a competitor and asked which was the best way to present the new material. Inter partes reexam would be a good choice, but for the date (too early). There was other citation of prior art and ex parte reexam answers.
5. I had a question about which rejection would be appropriate with the prior art disclosed 35.1% and the patent had the range of 20-35%. There were answers: 102, 102 and a preliminary 103, and 103.
6. I had the Bloc question about “pain alleviation” and the “cure for cancer”
7. There were quite a few questions about practice after final rejection (2-3), but I can’t recall any of them.
8. I had a question about when a declaration (?) will be treated as an amendment.
9. I had the question about an RCE without a fee before an appeals decision.
10. I had a several PCT questions… like 6 maybe. I think I had two questions about Japan.
11. There were at least two 102(e) questions including a question about the effective date for a non-provisional originating as an international application claiming priority to a US provisional.
12. There was the question that included the answer that the published, unexamined German pieces of paper are not 102(d) art.
A couple of other points about the exam:
1. I basically did not take much of a lunch. I stepped out, ate a sandwich, and went back in.
2. The search function is frustrating. During practice, I would jump to the section and then start searching from there. You can’t do that in the real exam. It starts from the beginning of the chapter. I was unable to get it to do anything else.
a. There is a “find again” button but if you’re in a long chapter and it doesn’t find your search phrase, there’s no way to cancel the searching. You have to wait until it scans through all 350 pages. If you click the “leave search box open” you can avoid this issue.
b. It’s slow. It takes a good few seconds even to find search terms on the same page because of how the “find next” works.
c. The one nice thing: it automatically returns you to the same place in the MPEP if you click “done” on the MPEP to return to the answer screen and then want to go back to the MPEP.
d. There’s no way to have to sections open at the same time. So if you want to run to the rules, you’ll lose your position in the other chapter.
3. While taking the PRG tests I was finishing 50 questions with about an hour to spare. On the real test I was finishing with about 25-30 minutes to spare. I blame this mostly on the search incapabilities.
4. The marked question procedure actually works pretty well. If you mark a question, once you get to the end you can review JUST the marked questions. If you plan on doing this, I suggest that 1) you pick an answer anyway, 2) write down quick notes about the search that you already performed.
5. BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT ACCIDENTALLY CLICKING. It’s very easy to select (or unselect) an answer when setting focus on the answer screen. Reclicking on an answer will UNSELECT that answer even though no other answer is selected.
6. My first half was considerably harder than my second half. A friend who took it at the same time as me reported just the opposite.
7. The exam is really not that tough.
Best of luck!
other ones that were on the exam: lip gloss as gag gift and Laurel & Hardy:
14.
On August 7, 1997, practitioner Costello filed a patent application identifying Laurel,
Abbot, and Hardy as inventors. Each named inventor assigned his patent rights to Burns just
prior to the application being filed. Laurel and Abbot, alone, jointly invented the subject matter
of independent claim 1 in the application. Hardy contributed to inventing the subject matter of
claim 2. Claim 2 properly depends upon claim 1. The examiner rejected claim 1 and claim 2
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) as anticipated by a journal article by Allen, dated July 9, 1997. Laurel,
Abbot, and Hardy are readily available to provide evidence in support of and sign an antedating
affidavit under 37 C.F.R. § 1.131 showing reduction to practice of the subject matter of claims 1
and 2 prior to July 9, 1997. Which of the following may properly make an affidavit under 37
C.F.R. § 1.131 to overcome the rejection of claims 1 and 2.?
(A) Laurel and Abbot.
(B) Laurel, Abbot, and Hardy.
(C) Laurel, Hardy and Burns.
(D) Burns only.
(E) None of the above.
The claim counting question was also on there where the answer is 147.
does anyone know which revision of the mpep that the current patent registration exam test is based on?
Rev. 4 (started being covered by exam in 10/06…)
Quick question for anyone who has already taken the computerized exam. Can anyone give a guess of how many of the “repeat questions” you saw on the exam. It is like 1 or 2, 10-15, 30-40, etc?
Thanks,
Mike
Mike-
Word on the street is the number varies, anywhere between 15 and 25-30ish.
Check out discussion at intelproplaw(look at the most recent last page of the forum posting with Subject “New Patent Bar Online Exam - Prometric”)
Mike,
I took it on 7/5/08 and about 25-30 questions were from the repeated questions/old exam questions. I studied April and October 2003 exams extensively.
Hey all,
Like i said before on the old test section of this website, nothing beats studying for this test than taking old exams and then analyzing why you got the answer wrong or right. helps if you have a spreadsheet to track it. i think that over 70% of the exam is repeat concept testing (you will see the same cite i.e. 608.01n etc repeated over and over).
my advice is start with the 2003 exam and work your way back to 1998 unitl you can score 95 - 100 % on those exams by taking them over and over again.
best of luck
Neil
Since the current Patent Bar exam is so random and tricky in the selection questions, this site has the best approach in helping us to prepare the exams especially the report on the latest test questions.
Thanks for the informative site and appreciate all the effort.
I took and passed this exam today (about 1 hour ago).
This site proved most helpful both due to listing repeat questions as well as listing new questions that have been encountered.
The repeat questions I had are already listed.
New questions included the following:
- Mirror question
- Piecemeal examination
- PTO-892
- Appeals (MANY ON APEALS ESPECIALLY ON NEW GROUNDS)
- Spanish Phone
- Sweden, Germany, and Costa Rican (Germany and Costa Rica were identical.
- There were three questions on death of inventor at various time.
A likely beta question included one with regards to Accelerated Examination as opposed to petition to make special (see 708.02 in new MPEP).
With respect to appeals, there were three questions specifically related to an appellant filing amendments to overcome a new ground of rejection give by the board.