Failed Patent Bar (USPTO Registration Exam)? Here's Your Recovery Plan

Pro tip: Contact the exam provider directly for their specific retake policy.

• Treating an open-reference exam as one you can pass by looking everything up.
  Ninety scored questions in 360 minutes gives four minutes each, and the MPEP runs to thousands of pages. Aim to answer at least two thirds from memory and reserve searching for date rules and specific section numbers, which is exactly what searching is good at.
• Studying an older MPEP revision because it was the one a prep course was built around.
  OED names the exact version tested, currently the Ninth Edition Revision 01.2024 published November 2024, and warns that source materials may be revised during your examination window. Check the source materials page again in the fortnight before you sit.
• Expecting to follow a hyperlink inside the MPEP during the exam.
  OED redacts every external link in the reference materials at the test centre, and there is no access to outside websites. Practise navigating inside each document by section number so that a dead link does not cost you a minute.
• Submitting a diploma or a photocopy of a transcript with the application.
  The GRB requires an official transcript including the university stamp or seal. A diploma, a copy of a diploma, or a copy of a transcript will not be accepted, and an incomplete application delays admission rather than being fixed at the test centre.
• Letting the admission letter's scheduling window expire.
  The admission letter specifies a period in which you must schedule and sit. Once it expires you must file a new application and pay all fees again. A 90-day extension costs $124 under 37 CFR 1.21(a)(1)(iv) and must be received before the current period expires, or the fee is refunded and nothing is granted. OED has temporarily extended the standard scheduling window to 180 days until further notice, which reduces how often the extension is needed.
• Skipping a scheduled appointment and assuming the fees carry over.
  An applicant who does not appear for a scheduled examination forfeits all fees previously paid to the USPTO and loses eligibility at Prometric. If time remains in the testing period you must contact OED, not Prometric, to reset eligibility; if it does not, you reapply from scratch.
• Ignoring pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 because the AIA replaced it.
  Applications filed before March 16, 2013 are still governed by pre-AIA rules, and the MPEP carries both frameworks. Questions can turn on which regime applies before they turn on the substantive rule, so learn the trigger dates first.
• Bringing notes, printed outlines or your own scratch paper to the test centre.
  No documents, materials, machines or electronic devices may be brought in. Prometric supplies scratch paper and a pencil, collects both at the end and destroys the paper. Leaving the testing area to check notes stored elsewhere is listed by OED as cheating.
• Assuming a failed attempt lets you see the whole exam afterwards.
  You may review, but not copy, only the scored questions you answered incorrectly, and only within 60 days of the mailing date of the notice of results. One review session is allowed per examination, taken by computer at a Prometric site or at OED in Alexandria, Virginia, with no notes permitted.

• Needs a science or engineering degree, not a law degree
• 100 multiple-choice questions in 6 hours (50 scored, 50 unscored)
• Study the MPEP (Manual of Patent Examining Procedure), it's the Bible
• PLI Patent Bar Review or Wysebridge are top prep courses
• Open-book exam, but you need to know WHERE to find answers fast
• Passing makes you a registered patent agent (or patent attorney if also a lawyer)