The Program

Director's Audio Message "Keys to Success"

Our Director wants you to fully appreciate the challenges that you have undertaken and what you are in for. Not only will you have to learn hundreds of new rules and topics and numerous prior exam questions, you will also have to learn the MPEP and how to efficiently search and navigate the MPEP on exam day. There are multiple challenges, and we want you stay focused on the process, jump all the necessary hurdles, pass the exam (on the first attempt!), be prepared to intelligently discuss some of the material in a job interview, and begin thinking about filing your own patent applications. Our Director gives you some important advice to accomplish all of these objectives. You can hear this audio message for yourself on our Course Sample page. Just click the play button on the Introduction Lecture.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Priorities to Successfully Pass the First Time

The Introductory Reading Assignment lays out a number of strategies for easily passing the exam on your very first try. Our Director outlines your priorities so that you know exactly what is important and there is no confusion about what must be done to achieve this goal.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Understanding Vocabulary

Many fields of study require new vocabulary. PatBar® highlights over 85 words, phrases, and acronyms that you should know before you start the study sessions. This allows you to commit these new terms to memory and return to them as you need them.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Recommendations to Achieve Your Timing Goals

Each and every one of our students has different needs and expectations. We give you options in the instructions so that you can meet those needs. The PatBar® course recommends certain strategies depending on the study time available and consistent with the student's daily schedule. This is possible because the course is broken up into distinct, consistent, predictable and manageable one hour increments.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Tables

The material in a patent bar review course can be complicated and difficult to manage. Sometimes you'll have several options available to you, only to find that the options have more options! You'll want to compare one way of doing something with another way. When this happens, we provide a table. A table puts all those factors into one format, on one page, using simple language to explain a point. Later, when you need to use that point in a different situation, you can find it again with just a few key words.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Timeline Lessons

Timelines can be hugely powerful to the uninitiated. Many exam questions throw you off by just the sheer volume of facts and dates. A timeline is used to manage this complexity in an easy-to-use and familiar format. Once you appreciate the form and symbols that we teach for making timelines, you will be making timelines almost every day, and thinking about prior art (inventions which predate the one you're working on) and effective filing dates (the dates which the patent office uses to determine which applications were filed first) in the form of this symbolic language. If you can understand and master timelines, you are guaranteed to excel on the exam.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Practical Knowledge Points

Sometimes you need to understand things that are not in the MPEP and that you may not see in the patent bar exam. Why? Because the MPEP is written for examiners, not for practicing patent attorneys. You may find yourself using other options or doing things for more practical reasons than you'll find in the MPEP. You need more than possibilities; you need the insight that will help you manage those options and reap the benefits for you and your clients. PatBar® helps you choose the option that provides the best representation, and saves time and money.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Chapter Percentages

25 chapters of the MPEP are tested during the Patent Bar exam. If all things were equal, each chapter would be 4% important. Naturally, all things are not equal. This is where you use our experience to your benefit. Every chapter heading in the PatBar® study guide provides a percentage; what we've found to be the percentage of exam questions that come from that specific chapter. A high percentage means you'll know going in how important that chapter is.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Lightning Bolts

A large percentage of exam questions are directly dependent on a rule or rules. For this reason, many of the rules are very important. When we introduce one of the rules that you should know cold, we place a symbol next to the rule that means you should know the rule cold. The symbol is a "lightning bolt." We use a lightning bolt to remind you that "this is an important rule; ignore this warning at your own risk." If you know the important rules, you are guaranteed to excel on the exam.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

EQR™

About half the questions you'll see during the Patent Bar exam can be answered routinely if you have a reasonable understanding of patent rules, especially the parts of the statute that cover the reasons why claims are rejected. The other half is harder, with more obscure questions requiring that you search the MPEP for the answers. In the information age, more and more students are turning to the internet, looking for a shortcut. Unfortunately, many of them are getting burned.

EQR™is a PatBar® exclusive, and your key to success. Exam Question Research is the result of a very time-consuming (and frustrating) effort to harvest only the accurate and helpful comments posted online by students who recognize questions from past exams, or who found the answers in the MPEP. After sorting and collating this information, we have integrated it seamlessly into our study guides. (For example, if we see a specific question used in the patent bar exam, we include that question--and a model answer--at the exact point in the study guide where you'll find it relevant.) In our Course Sample, you'll see sections on a gray background, this material comes as a result of EQR™.

With EQR™, we believe PatBar® gives you the only complete picture of the questions and topics covered by the Patent Bar exam.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Keys to Using Short Summaries

Summaries are an important aspect of exam preparation. Our lectures (in both audio and written form) provide a summary of the material in each reading assignment, with an emphasis on bullet points. These summaries can be used over and over again as a refresher at any time during the course, and especially in the last few weeks before taking the exam. As one student says, "Summaries are a life saver and a time saver."

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Keys to Using Prior Exam Questions

We place heavy emphasis on exam questions at all times. This includes every study session and throughout the entire post course curriculum phase. In almost every case the number of prior exam questions that you have mastered is directly proportional to the number of exam questions that you will score correctly on exam day. Mastering prior exam questions is the most important aspect of exam preparation.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

How to Get Points by Knowing Efficient Search Techniques

During the exam everybody is doing a search of the MPEP (some more than others). We provide a number of tools to master searching the MPEP. One is a presentation called the "Exam Search Guide." This guide includes a number of tricks that makes searching more efficient and productive. Practicing these techniques using the Exam Simulation Suite™ CD will allow you to master these techniques in no time at all.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Practice Makes Perfect

We have emphasized two key factors for exam preparation: mastering prior exam questions and learning how to productively search the MPEP. This requires significant time and energy in a properly simulated exam environment in order to excel in these areas. Our proprietary software called the "Exam Simulation Suite™ CD" does this in the most efficient and productive way possible by closely simulating the actual exam.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

Learning Through Repetition

We know that there are two ways to dramatically improve your score on the patent bar. One is to understand the basic topics of the rules of practice. Since just studying the material can be overwhelming to the point that rules tend to run together, we have developed and produced a series of flash cards devoted entirely to the rules. Like a game the cards present the rules randomly; you never know what rules will be next. You pick a card. On the "face up" side are three rules, for example 37 CFR 1.136, 5.25 and 1.7. If you are playing with a partner, you must recite the topic of each rule. (In the example, this would be Extensions, Retroactive Foreign Filing License, and Saturday/Sunday Federal Holiday Rule.) Your partner is reading the back of the card to see how well you have responded. If you know the topics relating to each rule, then you place the card on a separate pile. If not, you put it back in the pack of cards. You play the game until you run out of cards.

The second set of flash cards involves naming the location of certain material in the MPEP. It is hugely beneficial to understand the layout and location of material in the MPEP if and when you need to search the MPEP. You can do this by studying the MPEP table of contents, but that will take much longer and will be much more difficult. The face of the card will name three unrelated of topics, such as "Extensions under 37 CFR 1.136," "Foreign Filing Licenses," and "A Broadening Reissue Application." The partner is viewing the back of the card which has the MPEP sections where the topics are located. If you get all three "right", the card goes on a separate pile; otherwise it goes in the bottom of the deck.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

The Theory of "Place Order, Start Immediately" Strategy

Our "Quick Start Kit" feature puts everybody on an even playing field because it allows a customer to get started within minutes of placing their order. When you place an order over the internet or on the phone, you will be given the address of a web page containing the introductory material, and the first 6 study sessions and lectures. In this way, you can avoid the delay that shipping imposes on your schedule, especially if the delivery time is five business days (a whole week of regular days). This service should also totally avoid the need for expensive expedited shipping. It may also save you several or many days of waiting which you can profitably use studying for the exam.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

"We're Here to Help" Program

For over ten years, we have been supporting our students by email. That's thousands of emails, and we continue to answer them nearly every day. Our students' questions often show a very high aptitude for discovering ambiguities in the exam questions--and there are plenty of ambiguities. It is from our alumni that we have mastered the art of customer service. With their help, we are constantly refining and updating our course. You reap the benefits.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

"Knowing the Questions Before You Arrive" Theory

Exam Question Research (EQR™) required that we conduct a thorough search of the internet to compile all available information on exam questions. Since we continually search our sources for new information and introduce that into our study guide, we decided to provide the new information to our current students so they can benefit from it as well. Periodically when we discover new information, we will email the new information to our students who have registered for our email alert service. When you purchase our program, we recommend that you register for this service.

Because of economic conditions, we are currently offering a $300 student discount off our regular price of $1295 (shipping included). Our program makes it easier to study and easier to pass. We have the best customer support and the best no-risk satisfaction guarantee available.

With our online Quick-Start kit, you can get started immediately. You'll receive a link to a page with all of the introductory material and the introductory lecture, plus the first 6 modules and lectures.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top

"Never Use This" Strategy

We highly recommend that you use the electronic version of the MPEP found on the Exam Simulation Suite™ CD. Use the hard copy in emergencies only. This is because you will only have the electronic copy available when you take the exam, so you might as well get used to it.

Back to Listing  |  Back to Top