About Tom Gregory: “I’m Tom, a trainee patent attorney based in Manchester. I graduated from the University of Manchester with a master’s degree in Physics. Recently, I’ve been working for clients in the aerospace and electronic consumer goods industries, and for university research departments across various fields of innovation. In my free time I enjoy hiking in Cheshire and the Peak with my Bedlington Whippet puppy, Etta, and updating her Instagram profile.”
Over the past few weeks, many of the patent trainees here at Appleyard Lees have received exam results from the UK PEB exams sat in October 2020, and from the more recent pre-EQE exam sat in March 2021. A number of our trainees passed both exams.
Our trainees were part of the first candidate cohort to sit this exam in the new online format. Despite a few technical issues, the format seemed well suited to the pre-EQE exam. Jonathan Foster’s write-up of how he found the exam can be found here.
Matthew Bennett, based in Halifax, is now UK qualified – congratulations to him! In a future blog, Matthew will provide an update on qualifying as a UK Patent Attorney – watch this space!
In the build up to the exams, many qualified members of the firm put themselves forward to run tutorials and to mark exam scripts. This was an enormous help to all in our exam preparation, and it was great to get together at a time when revision can feel like a very isolated endeavour.
Adam Frankland sat his first patent exams in the new online format, and had the following to say: “I sat my first round of UK foundation exams in 2020, so my first experience with patent exams was from home. Leading up to the exams in October, I was quite anxious and had a lot of questions about how the exams were going to be run, especially due to changing information at times. However, in exam week from my experience the invigilators were very helpful and my exams ran smoothly. I sat my exams from home, but I know a lot of trainees who sat theirs in and office, and having the option was definitely appreciated. I think it’d be great to see remote exams return in the future”.
Claire Devine reflected on her exam preparation and the online system: “It was such a feeling of relief, to have passed both FD1 and FD4. I definitely found the in-house tutorials and feedback really valuable, and it was nice having them online with all of the trainees from the other offices. Looking back at my experience of the UK exams, I think at the time I was not a fan of the PEB online system. However, having now experienced the overcomplicated EQE system, I would take the PEB system any day!”.
Richard Maclennan felt positive about the online exam format, and has advice for future pre-EQE candidates: “The pre-EQE lends itself to an online format given the structure of the exam itself so, with some changes to the online system, I don’t see any reason why the pre-EQE can’t continue to be held online in future. The pre-EQE course run by the EPO itself is well worth the cost. There is a lot of content to go through which includes the backwaters of the EPC that rarely come up in day to day work. The online course is structured in such a way as to make this easier to manage. My advice would be start early!”.
