Roy Prentice, a UK and European Patent Attorney and Trade Mark Attorney, recently reflected on changes in the working world of Intellectual Property. Here he adds to those reflections by relating what the examination system for qualification as a patent agent was like back in the 1960s.

“The Examination System in the 1960s
In those days, one had to serve as a technical assistant to a chartered patent agent (as they were called then) for three years before you could take the intermediate exam. Since most people started work in August and the exams were held in March, this meant in effect that you had to work for over three and a half years before taking the intermediate exam. The exam results were announced at the end of September so that it took over four years before you could pass the intermediate exam. The intermediate exam consisted of six three hour papers which had to be taken two a day over three successive days usually on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Paper A was on British patent law and procedure, Paper B was on overseas patent law and procedure, Paper C was on designs and trade marks, Papers E and F were on patent agents’ practice and Paper F was on “manufactures”. Paper F was the dreaded one because it consisted of twenty questions on all sorts of technologies such as “describe the processes and chemical reactions involved in the extraction of iron from sulphurous ore”, “describe a Geiger counter” and “describe one kind of hydraulic variable displacement swash-plate pump”. Ten of the twenty questions had to be answered. In order to pass the exam, you had to achieve at least 50% of the marks in Paper A, 50% of the marks in Papers A and B taken together, 50% of the marks in Paper C, 50% of the marks in Papers D and E taken together and 50% of the marks in Papers D,E and F taken together. There was no modular system in those days, if your marks did not achieve a pass in any of the groups, you had to take the whole exam again.

Having passed the intermediate exam, you then had to look forward to the finals but you had to serve as a technical assistant to a chartered patent agent for five years and pass the intermediate exam before you could take them. The finals consisted of five four hour papers which were taken every day for a week. Papers G and H were drafting questions and you usually had to draft claims for GB, Germany and USA. Papers I and J called on you to assess the validity and infringement of a patent and Paper K was on patent law and practice and consisted of two sections, section A having five questions of which four had to be answered and section B having three questions of which two had to be answered. The questions in section B carried more marks than the questions in section A and it was difficult to calculate the time that you needed to spend on each question. There was usually a trade mark question in each section so that if you had no knowledge of trade marks, you had to answer all of the other questions. There was also usually a question on designs in section A. In order to pass the exam, you had to achieve 50% of the marks in Papers G and H taken together, 50% of the marks in papers I and J taken together and 50% of the marks in Papers H, I and J taken together. The pass rate was very low; in the year that I passed there were 201 candidates and only 40 of us passed. In view of the low pass rate the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents (as it was called then) divided the papers into two sections; one covered the drafting papers G and H and the other covered papers I, J and K. If you achieved a pass in one section and (I think) over 35% in the other section, you were awarded a partial pass and were given two opportunities to re-take the section that you failed at the first attempt. If you failed to pass the failed section after two re-takes, you had to take the whole exam again. No pressure then!”

At least attorneys of Roy’s vintage didn’t have to pass European examinations, as the European patent system was not set up until 1978 and so he and his contemporaries were entered on the register of European Patent Attorneys under the “Grandfather” rules.