Introducing the Coffee Table Questions 2021
Some of you may already be aware of what I have been doing for the past couple of years with the ‘Coffee Table Questions’. For those who are not, in essence I have been writing questions relating to different parts of the syllabus, and writing associated mark schemes. For the previous two years I have sent these out twice a week to those who sign up by e-mail, allowing fellow trainees to test their FD1 skills with new questions (and without wasting valuable past papers).
I found that, especially as a resitter, I was running out of past papers which reflected current practice, and going over the papers was less valuable once I had sat them once. As such, it was helpful to me to write questions using the most up to date legislation and practice, and I hoped it would be useful for other trainees to practise.
To give you a flavour, I’ve provided an example question below, which I wrote last year. I quite enjoy writing them and continue to do so.
Spoiler alert: Go and revise the law on renewals before attempting the question, if you wish.
Example Coffee Table Question
Today’s date is the 8th of July 2019. You receive a phone call from a client of yours. He’s currently in an escape room themed around the Patent Office and he is willing to pay for your advice about some clues.
He states that there is a granted GB patent with a filing date of the 20th of November 2013, and a grant date of the 21st of December 2018.
He tells you that there are two identical panels in front of him, each having a rotatable dial currently reading January 1900. It appears your client can set the month and year on each panel himself.
An ethereal voice said to him something about the month and year when the 5th, 6th, and 7th year renewals were or are due.
He is getting quite stressed as time is running out and he doesn’t understand why there are only 2 panels. He suddenly realises the patent application is his, and he hasn’t paid any renewals so far!
Explain the situation to your client, provide him with the required information to escape, and advise him on what he must do to save his patent.
(8 marks)
Food for thought: What if the grant date was the 21st of April 2019?
What if the patent was an EP patent?
The Plan for 2021
I have written over 40 of these questions and I will continue to write more. If you’d like to sign up to receive them on a weekly schedule, please do so as outlined here.
This year, I’m intending to send the first question on May 1st, and then one question every Monday thereafter until the exam and I will include the corresponding mark scheme at the foot of the e-mail containing the following question.
In addition, towards the examination I’ll release a bank of extra questions for those of you who have burned through the past papers and want more to test yourself with. Of particular interest might be questions relating to the new aspects of design law that FD1 will be testing. Though we don’t know what to expect from the design questions post Brexit, I hope to write questions around the new aspects of the syllabus to help arm you for them.
For those of you attempting the example question, I’ll include the mark scheme to my example question above at the foot of the first Coffee Table Question e-mail…
