M2 2026: first impressions?
To all who sat the M2-paper today:
What are your first impressions with respect to the M2-paper? Any general or
specific comments?
For example, what did you think
about the level of the questions, was that suitable for a candidate having two
years of work experience? A good balance
between EPC-related questions and PCT-related questions? Did any unexpected
topics come up?
Please be reminded that, if you wish
to lodge a complaint pursuant to point I.9. of Instructions to Candidates EQE2026 concerning the conduct of
the examination, you must do so at the latest by the end of the day on
which the paper to which your complaint pertains takes place, by filling in the
dedicated form on the EQE website. The Form for paper M2 is only
available on 03.03.2026, 12:45 - 23:59, CET.
The paper and our answers
We aim to post our provisional answer in a separate blog post as soon as
possible after we have a copy of the paper, preferably in all three languages.
Should you have a copy of at least a part of the paper, please send it to any
of our tutors or to training@deltapatents.com.
Please be reminded that you can view
and print/download copy of your exam answer after the exam, via the view/download
button below the "1. Paper"-icon in the bottom left part of the outer
shell of the respective flow. It may not be available immediately after the
official end of the (part of the) paper, it can take 30-60 minutes to appear.
Apart from any pre-printable parts, the paper itself cannot be downloaded.
Comments are welcome in any official
EPO language, not just English.
In order to make responding to your
comments easier, please do not post your comments anonymously. You can use
either your real name or a nickname. 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, and post responses to our
answer (as soon as available) to the separate blog post with our answer. You
may also want to take a look at the blog posts about paper D!
We look forward to hearing from you!
There was a strange statement on the front page of the German paper, asking candidates to specify which version of the guidelines they were referring to in their answer. This seems to to be a clear breach of IPREE 2(1) which specifies the cutoff for legal texts for this exam as 31st October 2025. Candidates should not be expected to specify which version of the guidelines they are using - the onus should be on the secretariat to give candidates access to the correct version of the guidelines during the exam, or IPREE should be amended to make provision for this and we should be provided to both versions of the guidelines (the most up to date and the version as it was at the IPREE cut off and we may make a selection. A similar discrepancy happened in the official Mock M2 with a reference to [R.64.1(a) PCT] - depending on the legal cutoff you take the answer is completely different. The whole purpose of IPREE 2(1) in the first place is to provide legal certainty to candidates and markers.
ReplyDeleteIn the English version the same statement appeared in both parts.
DeleteThanks Tobius, I had the same in the English version and ignored it because I found it non sense. Just filed a non technical complain and asked not to be deducted points in case this is required for full marks
DeleteThank you Kat, I also filed a non-technical complaint yesterday.
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ReplyDeleteAs someone with 2 years of experience, I found part 1 very difficult and substantially trickier than part 2. Conversely, part 2 was very procedural and I think many candidates will score h highly here.
ReplyDeleteThis poor distribution of difficulty may be seen as unfair on candidates sitting M2 when compared to those sitting the old D paper. Candidates in the new EQE system have to pass both parts of M2 with no compensable fails. Conversely, candidates in the old system only need a 50% overall mark across the entirety of D (and maybe even as low as 45% with compensable passes). Given the relatively few marks available for each part 2 (25 and 20, respectively), this leads to the situation where a poor showing on one single question may be enough to ruin your entire chances of passing.
For example, one may fail M2 with, an overall grade of 60% across part 1and part 2 (12/25 marks on part 1, 15/20 marks on part 2) when the pass rate is set at 50% for both parts.
Q2 in D2 should be neutralized (full marks for all) in my opinion, although the neutralization situation is a bit different than 2022, as the error was informed during the Exam (2022 wasn't). However, neutralization still seems to be fair & necessary, as changing the question on the flight could have made people that already started with answering it lose time (every one konws how significant the time is for this exam).
ReplyDeleteSee Tutors’ Report on the EQE 2022 (https://information.patentepi.org/issue-4-2022/tutors-report-on-the-eqe-2022.html):
There was a problem with D1, Q5 for which all candidates received full marks...
A tutor asked whether why the Committee or the Examination Board had not informed all candidates during the Exam that there was an error in the English version and how it had to be corrected, so that the exam could have continued, as was done in paper times, such that there would not have been a need for any neutralization. Tiem indicated that this was a small question, such that changing the question on the flight could have made people that already started with answering it lose time. Also, D1.1 2021 learned that giving extra time in the WISEflow system also does not always work and has complications.
Should be Q2 in part I.
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