How to Pass the Patent Bar: A Study Plan That Uses the MPEP

The exam is open book in one sense only: the MPEP is on the screen. With 50 questions in three hours you have 3.6 minutes each, so you pass by knowing the common rules cold and searching only for the rest.

A plan in five steps

• Weeks 1-2: map the MPEP. Learn which chapter holds what (100 secrecy and foreign filing, 200 benefit and priority, 600 parts of an application, 700 examination, 2100 patentability, 1200 appeals, 1400 reissue, 1800 PCT, 2200 reexamination).
• Weeks 2-6: topic practice. Work our topics in order of weight, reading the cited MPEP section after every miss.
• Throughout: date drills. Priority years, grace periods, response periods with extensions, and national stage deadlines.
• Weeks 6-8: timed sessions. Sit 50-question sessions in three hours, then a full two-session mock.
• Book when you pass two full mocks at 70% or better.

Common traps

• Applying pre-AIA 102 to an application under the first-inventor-to-file provisions, or the reverse.
• Counting a deadline without moving it past a weekend or federal holiday (35 U.S.C. 21(b)).
• Treating a petition matter as appealable to the PTAB, or an appealable rejection as petitionable.
• Forgetting that extensions of time under 37 CFR 1.136(a) are not available for every period.

Start with the free practice test to see where you stand.