• This lecture will cover those topics that have most often shown up on the patent bar exam in the last 12 months.

• The material for this lecture, as well as for our course in general, was compiled by our development staff, at least one of whom sits for the patent bar exam every month. We sit for the exam in order to determine exactly what topic are being emphasized. So, for each chapter I'll be able to tell you how important it is and roughly how many questions you can expect to see from it.

• Our ExamPost QuestionBank contains a rough sketch of the newest questions asked on the patent bar exam along with where the answer for each question can be found in the MPEP. Due to copyright laws we cannot copy the exam questions in detail, but we can give you a rough idea of what each question concerns. It is extremely important to thoroughly review the exampost following the completion of this lecture.

• For your convenience, this lecture will be transcribed and edited, so that it is available to you in written form as OmniPrep's MPEP MiniReview.

• If you have no background in patents or patent law, you should have read OmniPrep's MPEP Basics Outline before proceeding to this lecture.

• The material contained in this lecture is greatly expanded upon in our MPEP Summary, which contains all of the Sections of the MPEP that have been tested on the patent bar exam in the last 3 years.

• For the sake of clarity this lecture series should be seen as only a part of your Patent bar exam preparation. The full 4 Step OmniPrep study process is as follows:
1. Read the MPEP Basics Overview
2. listen to this lecture carefully and review the related MiniReview outline and ExamPost QuestionBank
3. read our MPEP Summary and take each of the accompanying chapter exams, and
4. take each of our 8 full-length exams using our searchable electronic MPEP to practice your lookups

• Once you have completed this process we guarantee that you will pass the patent bar exam - or we'll refund 100% of your money.

• Now, before I begin the MPEP lecture, I want to go over some basic points that will really help you to pass the exam - how the exam is developed, how the exam questions are devised, how to move through the exam as efficiently as possible, and what to watch out for on the exam - in other words, how to spot and avoid the basic exam tricks that the PTO likes to throw at those taking the exam:

1. Prepare only for what is on the exam
One mistake made by most who fail this exam is to assume that it is a basic test of patent law, or a test of PTO procedures. It is not. Rather, it is a test of certain PTO Rules and procedures as embodied in the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP). Certain parts of the MPEP have always been tested extensively on this exam, while other parts were ignored. Many new questions have been added to that pool since the April 2003, and we clearly explain the topics these cover and where the answers can be found in the MPEP; but even now about 40% of the questions on the patent bar exam are derived from exams given before the 2004.

In general, focus your preparation on Chapters 700 and 2100, and ignore chapters 2300 and 2400. The PTO in fact has told us NOTHING will come from Chapter 2400. Chapter 700 focuses on the rules and procedures for responding to official actions. Chapter 2100 spells out the basic law that the PTO follows. Both are heavily tested.

2. Pacing is everything on the Patent Bar Exam
You have to take two 3 hour exams, an AM and a PM, each with fifty multiple-choice questions. Some of the questions can be answered in less than a minute, some questions require many minutes, but on average to pass, you need to be on a three minute per question pace. If you do enough practice exams to achieve that intuitive, three-minute per question average pace, and keep to that pace on the exam, you will pass. If you don't, you will likely fail. It really is that simple.

Another cause of failure to finish is a refusal to abandon a question that you can't easily find the answer to. YOUR GOAL IS TO GET 70% of the questions right, which works out to 63 questions (if you do not include the 10 experimental questions that do not count towards your score). If you try to get them all right, you won't finish, and if you don't finish, you won't pass. You have to defer those impossible questions to the end to make sure you get all of the easier questions, and you have to learn to give up on questions when your look-up is going nowhere.

3. Know the newest questions contained on our ExamPost, and those on the old 2001/2/3 exams
The heart of your preparation, after listening to the lectures, reading the MPEP MiniReview and MPEP summary, will be focused on memorizing questions and answers and understanding why each answer is correct. The PTO has a set of tricks they bring out for every exam. The best way to condition yourself to recognize and avoid their tricks is to practice questions.

4. You Must Take all of our Full-length Practice Exams
On exam day as you take the exam you want to be as relaxed and comfortable as possible given the circumstances. You can't be trying your pacing for the first or the second or the third time on exam day. The best way to achieve that pacing is to practice on old exams. Set aside three hours and try a practice exam. Do it just like on exam day. Do this as many times as you can, and do it until you can achieve a score of 90% within a two hour time frame.

Create and implement a plan to be at your best on exam day. Know where the test site is, how to get there and how long it will take. Bring your lunch, and plan what food and beverage will get you back to work on the afternoon exam reenergized and relaxed, ready to continue to rock and roll.

5. Always seek the best answer
After you read a few of the exam questions and look at the five possible answers, you are going to say to yourself, "None of these are correct," and you'll probably be right. On other questions, you will find two answers that are literally correct. One way to go is to assume there must be a trick here, and that you can find the answer if you just keep looking. In reality, there is no trick, just a poorly worded question. The PTO is fond of "All of the Above" and "None of the Above" and " (A) and (B)" so it is essential that you check every one of the five possibilities before selecting your choice. If there is no obviously correct answer, just pick the one that is the best and move on. If there are two or more correct answers, pick the one that seems the most complete and move on. Bottom line, you have to keep moving if you're going t to pass this exam.

6. Answer every question and guess intelligently
This is not an exam that penalizes you for guessing; it rewards guessing. There are five possible answers to every multiple choice question and two or three can almost always be eliminated by what you have learned in our course material. Sometimes every answer, except one, is obviously wrong - consider this a gift.

7. Don't look up answers that you are 90% sure are correct
Sometimes you will be 90% sure than one answer is correct. It is tempting to go into your MPEP to confirm that what you know to be true is in fact true. Instead make a note that you want to check the answer at the end if there is time and move on. The computer will allow you to flag questions and to return to them later, as time allows.

8. Practice your searches with our electronic MPEP
Under the computerized exam format, you have access only to an electronic, searchable PDF formatted version of the MPEP. Using an electronic MPEP can be slow and awkward, and your look-up opportunities are significantly reduced, unless you have practiced using it many times.