6. Educational events

6. Educational events

Lectures

CIPA and the Informals Committee collaborate to run lectures and tutorials to support in both the UK Patent Examination Board (‘PEB’) exams and the European Qualifying Examination (‘EQE’). Details on the exams themselves can be found in the sections regarding the UK and European qualifications.

Each lecture focuses on a specific topic, relevant both to the exams and to the day-to-day practice of trainees.

The Foundation Lecture series includes individual lectures with titles like ‘Novelty and Inventive Step’, ‘Patentability’, ‘Basic English Law’, ‘Introduction to Trade Marks’, ‘Introduction to Copyright and Designs’, ‘Infringement’, etc. The lectures are designed to introduce trainees to some of the key topics which are useful in day-to-day work and which form part of the Foundation exams.

All lectures are broadcast live on Zoom, recordings are then logged in the Lecture Archive section of the CIPA website.

Tutorials

CIPA and the Informals Committee work together to provide a tutorial system each year, to help trainees to prepare for the UK and European exams. Qualified CIPA Charted Patent Attorneys (‘Fellows’) offer tutorials to go over specific past exam papers (for the UK exams and the EQE), and trainees can sign up to join the tutorials. This is especially useful if you’re at a small firm or in an in-house IP department, or if you’re the only one in your office taking a particular exam. Even if you’re at a big firm that runs its own tutorials, you can always benefit from the experience and expertise of attorneys working at other firms or in industry.

The tutorials are free and open to everybody. We are always looking for people to give tutorials – we would be very appreciative if, when signing up to participate in a tutorial, you would ask amongst your firm if any supervisors/qualified colleagues would be willing to give a reciprocal tutorial. Further information about the tutorial system, and a list of available tutorials, is available at here.

Buddy Scheme

The Informals committee also organise a buddy scheme, which provides useful support channels for trainees. This is particularly useful for those in small firms or working in-house. Upon signing up, you will be paired with another trainee that has signed up to the scheme. More information can be found here.

UK IPO visits

The Committee organises annual trips to the UK Intellectual Property Office (‘UK IPO’) which gives trainees the opportunity to meet with the patent examiners, see the inside workings of the IPO and attend lectures from senior examiners on subject matter like ‘Excluded subject matter’ and ‘Accelerated processing’. There are further one-on-one discussions with the examiners and a claim drafting workshop. Please note that these often get booked very quickly. An email will go out to all student members announcing the booking opening, as well as a post on the Yellow Sheet blog. So again, make sure you are signed up to hear about this!