IRC: #techbytes @ Techrights IRC Network: Thursday, November 09, 2023

schestowitz

To me the most obvious solution to better qualified EP attorneys seems to be mandatory university studies in European Patent Law." Speaking as someone who did one of the masters courses in IP law presently on offer in Europe, I am sceptical that it would do much to improve the profession. Certainly employers did not seem to credit it in selecting candidates for interviews - indeed one very senior partner said they did no

schestowitz

t credit the course at all - though I did eventually find a slot.

schestowitz

What is going on at the epi? There are discussions in secret about the future with no formal opportunities for members and the rest of the profession to comment or influence. They are also drawing up a new REE for the EQE behind closed doors with punitive transitional provisions for partially-qualified candidates. In both cases, they are tipping the balance in favor of certain countries, and raising the bar for future candidates.

schestowitz

Why are they pulling up the drawbridge? Are they already anticipating the rapid decline of the European Patent Attorney due to AI?

schestowitz

With regards to whether this is actually a serious proposal from epi, according to the letter from CIPA: "In May this year, CIPA Council received a report that the Council of the epi had passed a motion in favour of raising the threshold technical qualification for entry to the European Qualifying Examination and, therefore, registration as a European Patent Attorney, to a Master’s level degree or equivalent. Council was further

schestowitz

advised that this will require an amendment to the Regulation on the European qualifying examination for professional representatives (REE) and that the EPO would be considering this in due course." Perhaps someone from CIPA can provide more details?

schestowitz

Just a few thoughts: 1. I see no evidence that the requirement for a four year degree is a serious proposal from EPI. 2. I see no evidence that patent monopoly quality is put at risk because there is no requirement for a four year degree. Plenty of Doctors of Philosophy who are crap patent monopoly attorneys. Plenty of Bachelors of Science are good patent monopoly attorneys. 3. I see no evidence that requiring a four yea

schestowitz

r degree would have a material impact on entrants into the profession. Of the large EPC states, the UK is an outlier in offering three year degrees. Nevertheless, almost all current entrants into the UK patent monopoly profession already have at least four years of technical university education. Many, if not the majority, already have PhDs, integrated undergraduate Masters degrees or standalone postgraduate Masters degrees. Very few o

schestowitz

nly have a three year Bachelor's degree. 4. This is a storm in a tea cup; the latest example of navel-gazing patent monopoly attorneys obsessed by trivia. See previous tea cup-sized storms on: adaptation of the description, oral proceedings by videoconference, application of ST.26 to divisional applications. All are banal issues which, while potentially frustrating and unwarranted, matter little to our clients and have been blown

schestowitz

out of all proportion by people with too much time on their hands.

schestowitz

I've heard a lot of talk over the years about "tips and tricks" for the EQE. I've trained a lot of graduates who have become successful patent monopoly attorneys. Those that understand the job and develop the skills to do it well pass the exams in my experience.

schestowitz

That sounds a lot like the Hagen course for Patentanwalt training in Germany. https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/kurthaertel/studiengaenge/patent/index.shtml This kind of structured training for EPAs might be a good thing in general, but it doesn't seem that it would raise the pass rate in the EQE. In 2023, 41% of German candidates passed the EQE, whereas other countries had significantly more successful candidates (UK 68%, NL 67%

schestowitz

, IE 62%). To be fair, the Hagen course is focussed on related areas of law, rather than patent monopoly law per se. The pass rate in the German national patent monopoly attorney examination is about 95% and that might be evidence for the success of courses such as the Hagen course. If we're really interested in raising the quality of EPAs maybe we should be looking at how successful exam candidates are trained right across the E

schestowitz

PC countries and aim to share that best practice, rather than introducing arbitrary academic requirements.

schestowitz

To me the most obvious solution to better qualified EP attorneys seems to be mandatory university studies in European Patent Law. A one or two year remote learning program could guarantee a high education level. Exam participants would be better prepared and the pass rate would rise. National attorney qualification programs might benefit from that, too.

http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2023/11/should-you-need-at-least-4-year.html?showComment=1699385303429#c4558869541040473105

schestowitz

schestowitz

According to the CIPA letter 3.7 million of the 5 ...</a></h5><blockquote>According to the CIPA letter 3.7 million of the 5 million STEM students across the EPC countries are studying for Bachelor’s degrees and 1 in 5 trainee patent monopoly attorneys in the UK has a Bachelor’s degree. Seem like significant numbers to me.</blockquote></li>

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-ipkitten.blogspot.com | Should you need at least a 4-year scientific degree to be a patent attorney? - The IPKat

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-www.fernuni-hagen.de | Dokument existiert nicht (mehr) - FernUniversität in Hagen

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-ipkitten.blogspot.com | Should you need at least a 4-year scientific degree to be a patent attorney? - The IPKat

Nov 09 03:24

schestowitz

<li>

schestowitz

<h5><a href="https://reactos.org/blogs/newsletter-103/">Newsletter 103 - Late 2023 news</a></h5>

schestowitz

schestowitz

Salutations from the ReactOS project team! In previous posts, we talked about the ReactOS releasing process and the development status of the project, as well as the hiring of our long-term developer Hermès Bélusca-Maïto (HBelusca). We are making an effort to publish at least 3 newsletters per year, depending on how the development workflow goes. In this newsletter we will highlight some of the cont

schestowitz

ributions made by project developers and contributors, as well as future plans and headlines.

schestowitz

</blockquote>

schestowitz

</li>

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-reactos.org | Newsletter 103 - Late 2023 news | ReactOS Project

*jacobk has quit (Ping timeout: 2m30s)

Nov 09 04:58

*psydroid3 (~psydroid@u8ftxtfux23wk.irc) has joined #techbytes

Nov 09 08:18

schestowitz

<tmg1|michelson> it didn't break.

schestowitz

<tmg1|michelson> opal: -> https://www.villages.io

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 ya i saw that cus of you :p 🍂

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 i'll check it again 🍂

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 Los sitios web prueban su identidad a través de certificados. Firefox no confía en este sitio porque usa un certificado que no es válido para www.villages.io. El certificado es válido solo para villages.io. 🍂

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 🍂

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 Código de error: SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN 🍂

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 lol 🍂

schestowitz

<tmg1|michelson> whaaa

schestowitz

* opal drops the www.

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 there we go 🍂

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 christ well today was a day 🍂

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 sjws and white knights are all hellish 🍂

schestowitz

<tmg1|michelson> set the default kernel to linux-libre, since that's what i'm using and unless opal or someone gets a system up and running no one else is testing .. .

schestowitz

<tmg1|michelson> upgraded to 6.6 and also am testing some changes in autogroup code that are probably not going to work

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 im mclose enough to linux-libre 🍂

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 i have just enough bugs 🍂

schestowitz

<opal> 🍁 i do this at you 🍂

schestowitz

* opal slaps tmg1|michelson around a bit with a large rainbow trout.

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-SSL: no alternative certificate subject name matches target host name 'www.villages.io' ( status 0 @ https://www.villages.io )

http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2023/11/should-you-need-at-least-4-year.html?showComment=1699449430742#c6007491486862574524

schestowitz

schestowitz

"CIPA's analysis of new student members over the last five years (part of our efforts to understand recruitment trends and increase diversity) shows that for the 20 largest recruiters (who hire between 3 and 10 new trainees a year on average), the distribution of highest qualification is roughly 20% Bachelor's, 60% Master's and 20% Doctorate. NONE of these firms hired exclusively candidates with Master's or Doctorates. Further inv

schestowitz

estigation suggests that the pool of candidates applying for trainee patent monopoly attorney roles has a significantly reduced proportion of Bachelor's graduates compared to the overall cohort of STEM graduates. It seems that Bachelor's graduates are less likely to apply to become a patent monopoly attorney, perhaps because of a perception that a higher degree is required. For firms looking to broaden their recruitment pool, particul

schestowitz

arly in the electronics and computing field, it would probably help to emphasise in their recruitment information that a Bachelor's degree is (currently!) all that is required."

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-ipkitten.blogspot.com | Should you need at least a 4-year scientific degree to be a patent attorney? - The IPKat

http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2023/11/should-you-need-at-least-4-year.html?showComment=1699450993594#c845018386762278726

schestowitz

-TechBytesBot/#techbytes-ipkitten.blogspot.com | Should you need at least a 4-year scientific degree to be a patent attorney? - The IPKat

schestowitz

You're probably right that the social exclusion originates with the cost of higher education and that cost is particularly high in the UK (although it is also high in some other European countries). You're also probably right that a four-year Master's or a PhD isn't necessary to be a good patent monopoly attorney. So, no need for an arbitrary bar that doesn't seem to have any evidential basis. Appreciate very much the call for go

schestowitz

od collegiality.

schestowitz

Don't be so sure that they will not apply it retroactively. If the argument is directly-related to quality problems, then it is easy to come up with reasons why those less technically qualified should disqualified from certain tasks, such as UPC or EPO oppositions / appeals. Just speculating, but this create an "EU patent monopoly agent" level of representation. I think this is unlikely, but there is definitely an anti-c

schestowitz

ompetition vibe regarding the UPC representation "golden eggs". For example, the request to have the EQE results in 2024 early enough to benefit successful candidates in 2024 from the 1-yr UPC grace period has been refused without any further explanation (the results will be in July 24 as usual).

schestowitz

Yes. There's a very good chance that we will see a major shift in knowledge work of this type in the next 10 years due to the rise of Hey Hi (AI) assistance. Certainly things will look quite different in 20 or 25 years. Many long-since qualified patent monopoly attorneys working today will still be around then, myself included. This kind of change is an attempt to limit the number of youngsters entering the profession and ta

schestowitz

king up a shrinking pool of valuable work. Another way in which older generations are screwing things up for the young.