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The purpose of the "How To Pass P3" Study Guide is exactly as the title suggests. It is intended to help you pass the P3 examination and intentionally does not go into great detail on other topics that are closely related to drafting, such as patentability.
The history behind the Guide is quite simple. There were no revision guides for the UK Finals examinations when I was studying for them in 2007. Spurred on by Doug Ealey's excellent and hugely popular Study Guide for P2, I set about preparing a detailed set of notes for a P3 tutorial I was giving. I was asked by CIPA whether I would be interested in expanding on the notes and turning them into a Guide. That's where things are now!
As explained above, the purpose of this Guide is to propose a strategy for tackling a P3 paper. It looks at the common traps of claiming way too broadly or so narrowly that there is no useful protection. The Guide proposes an alternative approach which leads you to the sensible middle ground of claiming the invention itself. This is important for the P3 examination itself, but is also important in real life.
The Guide covers other problematic areas such as:
- (non-) essential features;
- categories of independent claims;
- whether or not to include method claims;
- choosing which features (not) to include in dependent claims;
- how to order dependent claims;
- preparing the introduction, statements of invention and advantage, description of the figures and specific description; and
- preparing the abstract, which is often done so poorly that easy marks are thrown away.
The Guide will evolve over time with the P3 examination. Any suggestions of topics for greater discussion in the Guide would be most welcome.
Iain Russell
How To Pass P3 |
