Passed Today on My First Try! 0 Prior Experience in Law; How I Did It.
Before I get into it, I want to say thank you to everyone in this community for the advice. I've been excited about being able to post this message, and I definitely couldn't have done it without this community. If you ever feel stuck or like you can't pass during the process, this sub has your back. Thanks again, now get ready for a long ass post.
Prologue
Getting into my process, I am currently a fifth year PhD candidate in chemistry. I decided back in my third year that research wasn't for me. After a semester of existential dread and questioning I rediscovered patent law as a career option and opted to give the exam a shot. I started with free resources like wysebridge's MPEP flash cards and the USPTO examiner training course. This was a very lack period, looking through material in-between time spent in the lab and trying to develop a patent vocabulary. This prologue to studying is also, in my opinion, the most important part for anyone in my shoes as an outsider to the world of patent law; make sure you enjoy patent law. Before you pour money into this endeavor please make sure you enjoy it. Do as much research as possible. My strategy is based on LibraryTricky126's post. Please give them some love!
Phase I - Learning Patent Law
Purchased PLI in October. It sucked, but I'm a grad student living on a grad student stipend - if I can swing it you should try too. PLI makes life a lot easier and structured. Starting in October I began watching the lecture videos up to 2100. Very passive, no notes, no phone, just absorbing knowledge. I'd usually watch an hour of videos 1-2 times a week before I went into lab and worked through the prime questions and quizzes in between lab work. Pretty much just work through the whole course to 2100; quizzes, mini exams, prime questions, homework, the whole shebang. This will help you figure out what you're good and bad at. With procrastination, it took me until after Thanksgiving to wrap up the video section. Following mini exam scores ranging from mediocre to bad I decided to spend December reading through the MPEP. I read the major chapter; 2100, 700, 600, 500, 1800, 1400, 200, and 300. Taking note of the ToCs for each chapter. Reading the MPEP, for me, was more to put everything together rather than learn the material within. 112(a) and (b)? 2164-2173. Interviews? 713. Claims and claim language? 608. Fees? 509. Learn where things are, it makes the whole process easier
Phase II - Mastering Patent Law
I began heavy practice question sessions during the week of limbo in between Christmas and New Year's. I retook everything the PLI courses had to offer. I saw a slight improvement but I opted to go a step further and make anki card decks for each question I saw. Using the PLI explanations I made flashcards on right and wrong answers, MPEP locations, and general patent knowledge stuff.
I ran through the course questions and completed my anki decks by the begin of beginning of February. Over the next month I followed the same work flow, but with the recently released '02 and '03 exams. Take the AM section on Thursday, PM section on Friday, review questions Monday and Tuesday and make flash cards, rinse and repeat for all three full length exams until I was done. I'll also add that I planned my experiments and lab work around these blocks, so I was able to accomplish this studying while progressing my thesis. Once I had these six massive, 100+ card anki decks I went through the all for the next two months. I never really did more than 45 minutes working through my flashcards but you have to do them every day. Writing the cards properly is also really important. I tried not to copy and paste the PLI answers. I made sure I translated the PLI language into my own, so I could say I truly digested what they were teaching.
Once May hit I went through the exams once more; same schedule: AM section on Thursday, PM section on Friday, review questions Monday and Tuesday and make flash cards, rinse and repeat. This is where everything started coming together, and I started to see passing scores. I danced the line of a 70% and I wanted to be closer to the 80-90% range. I felt my understanding of the chapters was still lacking, especially for 700, so I opted to read through the PLI MPEP chapter notes. And guess what I did after that? More anki cards! Live on anki friends, repetition is your best friend. At this point, it was mid May and I decided to try to focus on my stamina. Once a week, on Saturdays, I took a full length exam. I finally saw my 80%, but something felt off. I was burnt out and felt like I was just memorizing the old exams. I took a 2 week break and walked away from my 6 month daily anki grind.
Phase III - The Final Touches
After two weeks of being a chud, I needed a fire under my ass, so I registered for the exam. Giving myself six weeks to get my shit together was what I needed. I made two important choices on this phase - Monday to Friday I took half an hour to go through 50 questions via the PLI custom exam questions section, Saturday I would do another 50 questions the same way. I also moved from the regular browser PDF viewer to a Prometric PDF simulator. The Prometric program sucks. Get on top of it early. The custom questions really helped me master the navigation of the MPEP, the questions are longer and harder compared to the '02 and '03 exams and you're constantly seeing questions you've never seen. It forces you to learn how to pick out keywords from the question to make your search process easier. Some people say you should be able to search up all the answer choices on the '02 and '03 exams, I say do the custom exam questions. I felt like being stimulated by new questions and different topics was more beneficial.
The penultimate week before the exam I took a full week off to spend the entire day going through a full length exam; all 3 previous released exams, then 2 custom exams. I passed 4/5 of the full exams I took that week, only failing a custom exam with a 66. At this point I was sick of studying and finally felt ready. This week I also developed my scratch paper strategy. I used a T chard marked good and bad. I read through the whole exam in 30-45 minutes. Questions I can answer without searching I marked as good, everything else was under bad. Then I'd spend the rest of the exam searching the MPEP and getting shit right. Do this method, it's the best and most objective way to decide for when searching is necessary.
This week I went through all the exam questions I got wrong from my grind week, just reading through them and noting any patterns of forgetfulness. I took two 10 question custom practices to make sure I didn't forget how to use the MPEP and averaged a 70%. At this point I was ready.
The Exam
I took the exam today starting at 8 AM and ending at 3 PM. Oh boy. I won't go into much but the morning half was the hardest fucking thing I ever looked at. I swear I forgot how to read, I spent 45 minutes searching through the MPEP for the first 5 questions and had a panic attack. Most of the exam was 700 and 200, which were my weakest points. At the 90 minute mark I dissociated and locked in to at least put an educated answer down for the 30 questions I left blank. The only thing that kept me going was a post on this sub talking about how the morning section was hard, then the afternoon was easy but they succumbed to the difficulty. Persevere! I was able to finish and took my 45 minute break, 15 of those minutes I spent pacing outside thinking about how much I fumbled the bag, the other 30 I ate a wrap, drank another cup of coffee and got back in the zone.
The afternoon section was cupcakes and roses, this was how I wanted the whole day to go. I pretty much lived in 1800 and 2100 and those were my bread and butter. As I filled out the end of exam survey, my heart was beating out of my chest. Palms sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy, mom's spaghetti. I looked for the percentage too figure out how much I failed by but all I saw was that sweet "You have passed" message. Incredible. It's over. Now I just need a job lol!
Epilogue
Thanks for reading this five part epic. Like I said, I've been so excited write this post as a thank you to everyone that helped and a guide for anyone in my shoes. My 10 month journey might seem a bit like overkill but I really didn't want too take this shit again. Most days I spent 30-45 minutes studying and I thoroughly the process. For everyone outside the patent law field, you can do it! There's just a steep learning curve, and my philosophy for it is slow and steady wins the race. If you're also in a position where you don't need to take the exam ASAP, take your time and study slowly and consistently. Build good habits over the course of the journey and you'll be rewarded. If I had to do it all over again I'd spend more time in the MPEP, especially 700, and I wouldn't use split screen to search the MPEP. The Prometric viewer only lets you use the pdf viewer as a window that obscures the questions. If you've made it this far thanks for reading and feel free to reach out with any questions! Happy studying and you got it, just stay consistent!