Paper M1 - Assessing Information and Acting on Client Instructions
M1 hands you a bundle of information - usually a client letter with enclosures, a draft, prior art and correspondence - and asks for output that actually responds to the instructions. The exam tests whether you can extract the real question, build a chronology, apply the law to the given facts, and commit to a decision with dates and consequences.
Working method
- Read the task paragraph first, then the enclosures; number every distinct question the client asks.
- Build a chronology in date order: priority, filing, publication, examination report, response, grant, any national filing or competitor's application.
- Sort information into certain, assumed and missing; state assumptions openly in the answer.
- Answer in decision language: file, do not file, amend as follows, oppose, pay, withdraw - with a date and, where asked, a cost indication.
Worked example
A client writes that the invention was presented at a trade fair eleven months ago and asks whether a European application is still worthwhile. Reasoning: the EPC has no general grace period; Art. 55 EPC covers only abuse and display at an officially recognised international exhibition, within six months of the filing date. A trade-fair presentation is a public disclosure under Art. 54(2) EPC and destroys novelty unless it was confidential or non-enabling. So the advice is: the European application can still be filed, but expect a novelty objection; check the confidentiality arrangements first, and note that other jurisdictions have grace periods that may preserve options there.
Traps that cost marks
- Answering only the first question in the letter and missing the second, often the one carrying the marks.
- Treating a date mentioned by the client as a deadline without computing it against the applicable rule.
- Failing to notice that a period has already expired, then advising an action that is no longer possible.
- Delivering a summary of the law instead of a recommendation.
- Ignoring a request for a second opinion on a competitor's patent or for a cost estimate.