r/PatentBarExam

For those who have taken the patent bar, when you search for keywords in the MPEP, are the searched terms highlighted, or does it only take you to the relevant page without highlighting them?

And if you did, how did you accomplish this?

Be honest with me I have started and stopped a thousand times, this time I really want to commit. Am I in over my head, is this really unlikely, or is there any reccomendations for someone in my position.

I have a B.S. in Computer Science from a non ABET accreditted school I got this back in 2020. I have struggled to get into the industry (which I understand may be the delimiter, right there) I never got a job in tech and I am not the best coder. I rceently helped a friend launch a site using Claude Code but I myself struggle to make 50k USD a year in the U.S.
My GPA from undergrad is 2.5(using CAS) but I did take a semester of electrical engineering and had a 3.8 semester, I know that they don't see this but I am saying this to say I am a pretty good student, and I have matured.

I think my chances would be to become either a patent bar instructor, or take the patent bar exam, get hired as some sort of associate, then go to a top-75 law school by being a super splitter (low g.p.a., high lsat).

I was treasurer and founder of my HS's debate team, and I thouroughly lived policy debate, reading, and arguing. I feel like I sound naive so I ask others, with your infinite frames of reference, how can I start on this path? Is this a ridiculous venture?

Any advice/reccomendations on how I can work with what I have to get a career going?

TLDR; I have a low gpa and BS in CS, I am getting mixed views on if taking the Patent Bar would be useful in my position. Wondering what other paths may be available to me, or what you would do to get on board.

I've set my exam date about 35 days from today after studying slowly since January to work along my work schedule and last month I recently cracked 80% on the most recent exams offered in PLI. I'm coming off a week and a half break from studying after taking three full day practice exams to try and forget the questions and recover some mental stamina. Currently, I'm catching up on my anki flash cards and plan to start work through practice questions once again. I'm going to switch to the Patent Bar Fidelity look up tool to simulate the prometric look up system, and I think my point of emphasis is going to be trying to perfect my search technique and better grasp where things are in the MPEP. I've found this to be my biggest problem where I can't find certain questions in the practice exams. Any advice to speed this process up? I've read through the major chapters already I just want to iron out a good strategy for quick look ups.

The only iron clad plan I have for these final weeks is that two weeks from the exam I'm planning on taking off from work to take more 6 hour exams, then a week from the exam return to work and do some light flash card studying leading up to the big day.

I'm curious to hear about anyone else's final-month-before-the-exam-prep and any rituals I should follow before arriving at my testing site!

Prelim pass today, grateful for all the advice people have provided. Could anyone explain the timeline on the next steps (e.g., how long to actually receive reg number)?

I passed this week! I benefitted a lot from hearing other people share their experience on this sub so I'd like to share mine (also sorry this post ended up longer than expected). A little about me:

• My background is in computer science.
• My work experience is in software engineering and I studied while working full-time.
• I'm starting law school this fall and wanted to do something technology-driven, although not necessarily patents.
• My goals with taking the patent bar were to figure out if I enjoyed the subject matter and get it out of the way early if so.

I began studying in January after buying PLI via a group discount. My study schedule was as follows:

• January/February: Follow the PLI lectures and study guide (binder but it's online now). I followed the common advice - read the study guide chapter beforehand and follow along during the videos.
• March: Took a break.
• April: Took all the post-course exams (not the full exams). Registered to take the exam in June to help hold myself accountable. It took about a week after applying before being approved to take the exam via letter in the mail. Took one of the three PLI full exams as a diagnostic; scoring about 50%.
• May: Did sets of 25 questions (an hour and a half) on the custom exams via PLI Patware. I kept a wrong answer journal and wrote down explanations and MPEP location for questions I got wrong or didn't quite understand. At the end of the month I took a second full exam, scoring about 65%.
• June: Locked in. Tried to do at least one 25 question set every weekday and a full exam's worth of questions on weekends. Scored 85% on the third full exam two weeks before the exam date. At this point I was consistently scoring over 70% on the custom exams. Used the remaining time to retake the other full exams and review my wrong answer journal.

Here are some observations from taking the test:

• As others have reported, I didn't encounter any pre-AIA subject matter.
• The MPEP reader was rough, but honestly not as bad as I was expecting based on what others said. There's no CTRL+F but the find+repeat is pretty responsive and it's readable despite being blurry. The biggest issue is that you don't get an indication of how many search results there are like you would with CTRL+F, so it's hard to gauge if you chose a good search term without clicking through. I used PatentBarFidelity (great site!) to simulate the interface in some custom exams the day before and it was enough to get comfortable.
• The search feature seems to struggle with italicized text. For example, if the phrase prima facie obviousness had a portion italicized, the search string "prime facie obviousness" would not work. So try multiple search terms before giving up, and the shorter and more unique the better.
• It took like five seconds to load the next question each time. Keep this in mind if you plan to go back to questions later.
• Most of the subject matter seemed like fair game based on what was covered in PLI. Maybe slightly more emphasis on topics outside of MPEP 700/2100 than I expected. I looked up stuff in the MPEP for almost every question. There were questions drawn to the subject matter in supplemental materials outside the MPEP, so make sure you don't neglect those.
• You are allowed to finish either of the two sections or your hour-long break early. After the exam, you will be given a short survey about the testing experience and told if you passed.

Based on my studying, here is what I would recommend and some comments (assuming using PLI):

• Speed through the videos and study guide. The videos aren't in-depth enough to be your only exposure to the subject matter, and I found the watermarked study guide too inconvenient to refer to often. They can be good refreshers if you're away from the material for a while.
• PLI recently (I think in May) made an update to remove pre-AIA content from the course. There are a few stray questions that didn't get updated correctly, but this drastically improved the quality of my study. Send a message to the instructor if you think a question is confusing.
• A lot of people recommend retaking the three full exams until you get them right, and I did do this but I feel like it leads to memorization/over-familiarity with those specific questions. I've also seen the recommendation of making Anki flashcards. I would not recommend this, except for brightline issues and things that come up constantly. There's so much material it's impossible to remember it all, and you'll want to look things up in the MPEP even when you're confident in your answer.
• The PLI course recommends reading through MPEP 1200 and 1800. I think skimming is fine. I read them each twice front-to-back but still looked stuff up on every question about appeals and PCT. It's good to read the MPEP SOME to get used to it, but that was overkill.
• I did ~forty 25-question sets, which adds up to about 60 hours. The videos are 40 hours, and doing the study guide readings beforehand took another 20 or so. The post-course quizzes and practice exams + retakes accounted for about 50 hours. I also spent time reading the MPEP on its own. Altogether, it probably took 200-250 hours of studying.
• I do not recommend taking a break in the middle of your studies if you can help it.

TL;DR - I found grinding the Patware custom exams in PLI to be the most valuable practice, and I encourage using it to get proficient with MPEP lookup. You may be able to get a similar experience from other courses with a large question bank. Keep a wrong answer journal to help absorb the material. You should get to the point where you can look at a question and immediately know what section of the MPEP relates to it (and use the Subject Matter Index if not). This was a huge grind, but I found the experience rewarding! Best of luck to everyone.

I posted here about a month ago after missing the Patent Bar by 2 points (got a 68). Just wanted to come back and share that I passed my retake.

Big thanks to everyone who commented on the original post — it honestly helped me reset my approach a bit.

A few things I changed the second time around:

1. stopped trying to “memorize” my way through it

First attempt I definitely fell into the trap of recognizing questions / answers instead of actually understanding the rules.

Second time I slowed down and made sure I understood why something was right or wrong, not just what the answer was.

2. the exam interface is lowkey a big deal

I kind of brushed this off the first time, but it actually matters a lot more than I expected.

Scrolling through the PDF, jumping between sections, using search, etc. all eats up time if you’re not comfortable with it.

Practicing in a more realistic setup helped a lot here — PrepPatentBar’s full exam simulator felt pretty close to the real thing, especially the PDF/search flow. That got me way more comfortable actually navigating during the exam instead of panicking about where things were.

3. PLI + PrepPatentBar combo worked well for me

PLI was still my main resource — it gave me the structure and the actual substance.

PrepPatentBar was more like reinforcement + practice, and I actually liked the explanations a lot. It helped me understand why answers were wrong instead of just drilling questions.

Also the simulated exam environment was probably the most useful part for me tbh — it made the real exam feel way less chaotic.

Overall, failing by 2 points sucked at the time, but it also made it pretty clear what I was missing.

If you’re in the high-60s range, you’re probably closer than you think. A few tweaks in how you study + how you practice the exam environment can make a big difference.

Good luck to everyone still grinding it out 👍

Received a preliminary pass on my exam taken today. In both my morning and afternoon session I encountered no mailing or facsimile questions.

I did encounter two questions about EFS. One about the date or receipt for a transmittal sent from California at 10 PM and another about rules regarding EFS submission for applications under a secrecy order

Test day tomorrow. I feel pretty good going into it, but there is still the fact I’ve never seen the questions before. Does anyone have any last minute tips/tricks/advice that helped them(other than the usual eat well and get a good nights sleep).

Only got 60% and failed last week, so demoralized. English is not my firstly language and I have no any experience in patent prosecution. I have done all the PLI problems including the Custom Exam (977 problems in total, crazy!). And I can make 85% each session before I take the real exam. I must admit that I benefit a lot from doing PLI problems, it help me establish clearer concepts, solidify my foundational knowledge, and fill in many gaps in my understanding.

John, the PLI faculty, said if someone can get about 70-80% at the last 3 most released exams in the post course, they are ready to go for a real exma. I really don't think so, because it is not far enough. The real test is more complicated and difficult than I can imagine. The exam covers too many details that I never had time to look up in the MPEP, and they never appeared in PLI materials either. The MPEP on the exam interface was too blurry, and scrolling through it was extremely inconvenient (I didn't know there is a button to control it). For example, when trying to find the rule about using email to serve a respondent in a Derivation proceeding, I searched “email” and got nothing — only later did I realize I needed to search “electronically” to find it. That kind of fumbling wasted several minutes each time. By the time I reached the last 25 questions in the afternoon session, my head was already spinning. To make things worse, those final 25 questions were almost all long, complex ones, and my reading speed is already on the slower side. I’d finish reading and understand what the question was about, but the answer I expected wasn’t among the choices — so I had to eliminate distractors one by one. As time ran out, I had to rush, and I’m pretty sure I got too many of those last questions wrong, which likely hurt my overall score.

As I mentioned, English is my second language, and my reading speed is on the slower side, which makes the current long-format questions quite overwhelming for me. I even wonder whether the Patent Bar exam has gotten significantly harder this year. I think my only option at this point is to practice with more similar questions to improve my reading speed, fill in my knowledge gaps, and avoid spending too much time searching the MPEP — so that I can have enough time left to tackle the long, difficult questions at the end. Does anyone have any good suggestions? Or are there any better materials that could help me improve my score and pass this exam? I feel that PLI is no longer the right fit for me. Thank you so much!

Hey reddit,

I'm a few weeks into studying for the patent bar and I have no idea what is going on. I promise I am not being dramatic, I am truly lost. I purchased PLI's patent course with my law school's discount and am wildly disapointed. I have more of a bio/biochem background and feel like I am listening to a bunch of engineers speak in broken english, where there is no beginning, middle and end to the lectures. Did anyone else run into these issues or have any tips on how to make this stuff stick? I haven't scheduled my test yet because at this rate I won't be ready to take it in august. I typically don't have these issues when studying, but this is making me rethink going into prosecution.

Any advice or would be so helpful! :)