Why the passing rate of the EQE will be significantly higher this year.
Patrick van Ginneken
Patent Attorney at AOMB IP | Ik help jou met al jouw vragen over octrooien: zelf verkrijgen of last van die van een ander?
Dear all,
following the government-enforced closure of the daycare facilities in the Netherlands, the final preparation for the EQE when the daycare finally opened again, the EQE itself and a well-deserved holiday afterwards, I have not been very active on LinkedIn the last few months. But now I am finally back!
As a first post, I wanted to share some positive spirits. Building upon my experience sitting the EQE, I think that enough has been written about the content and the execution of the EQE. So, let me explain why I expect the passing rate of the exam to be (much) higher this year than in previous (and future) years, and why this is perfectly normal.
To make this post not too long, I will keep things simple, and e.g. forego the compensable fail and pass distinction.
If we take the D exam as an example, and if we forget about the language “issue” which made this year’s exam more stressful, a passing rate of roughly 40% is normal in the previous years. This year, I expect about 57% of the candidates to pass.
In the past, year after year about 1600 candidates sat the D exam. 40% Passes (about 640 candidates); 60% has to take a re-sit (about 960 candidates). The new influx is equal to the number of candidates that pass, as the number of candidates sitting the D exam is relatively constant. So, the new influx each year is about 640 candidates.*
Last year, as we all know, the EQE was cancelled. So, this year the D exam was taken by an extraordinarily high number of candidates: the 960 re-sitters of the EQE-2019, the new influx of 640 EQE-2020 candidates, as well as the new influx 640 EQE-2021 candidates, totaling at about 2240 candidates.
Of the about 2240 candidates, the 640 candidates that would have passed in 2020 but could not take the exam should normally also have passed this year. Of the remaining 1600 candidates another 640 pass, just like in previous years. So, in total about 1280 of the 2240 candidates, i.e. 57%, will have passed this year.
I do not have the average passing rate of the A, B and C exams at hand, but a similar calculation can be made for these exams.
*in reality, the new influx will be higher as not everyone re-sits. Some just stop trying. This does not make the calculation different, however.
Patent Attorney at Keltie LLP
3 年Full EQE statistics on https://statisteqe.beetz.nl
Patent Attorney at Keltie LLP
3 年I don't know where you get your statistics from, but in recent years I only see 1000-1200 candidates in the paper D results. There were 1440 in 2012, which may have been because there was a group of people that tried to avoid having to sit the pre-exam in 2013. The pass-rate (defined by you as not having to re-sit, so I assume you use the 45 marks line) is 50% on average over the last ten years. 41% of first-time full sitters actually pass the complete exam in one go. A larger proportion of first-time candidates will increase average scores, but it is to be seen if this difference outweighs the usual statistical fluctuation in exam results due to varying difficulty and marking practices. Another important factor will be that this year half of the first-time candidates did not have to do a pre-exam. There is a very strong correlation between pre-exam score and paper D score. The 20-30% who would normally have failed the pre-exam in 2020 are not in a very good position to pass paper D this year. So I would not be surprised if the pass rates will be lower this year.
Patent Attorney @Calysta | Co-Founder @Humboldt Blue | EQE-Tutor | Gerechtsdeskundige | Master degrees in Mechanical Engineering and in Intellectual Property Law and Knowledge Management
3 年Interesting point to think about before concluding that a higher passing rate would imply that they made it easier to pass this year. One additional consideration: the influx will probably be higher this year because everybody “passed” the pre-exam last year. The additional people that were supposed to fail the pre-exam are presumably more likely to fail the main exam and will lower the passing rate a bit compared to your calculation.