Introduction

Every question on the PTO exam and every answer can be found in the MPEP. Roughly 97% of the questions can be answered from 37 CFR. Obviously, these two sources will be the basis for your preparation and will be your primary look up resource on exam day. While the MPEP is by and large well written, very well indexed and clear, it has four major problems as a look up source and learning tool.

First, the majority of its thousands of pages and appendixes are directed at material that tells examiners how to do their jobs and is never tested. All of this verbiage makes finding what you need time consuming and frustrating.

Second, the MPEP contains no clue to the uninitiated what is important and what is not, what will be tested and what can be safely ignored.

Third, the MPEP was never intended to be used to learn basic principles and until those principles are understood, the details that the MPEP does set forth are hard to remember and apply without a context.

And finally, the MPEP does not contain much in the way of lists and tables that are so valuable in learning and save valuable time in looking up answers.

This study guide:

• provides you with an MPEP keyed reference that explains basic concepts in plain language;
• includes more than fifty charts and tables comparing various procedures and options, and more than a hundred lists that will help you remember or look up points that will be tested;
• points out areas and key points that will be tested; and
• focuses only on what you need to know to pass the exam..

Everything that is in this guide has a good chance of being on your examination, and the emphasis given reflects the likelihood.

Our advice is to take this study guide, the Longacre Cheat Sheet and your MPEP to the exam, and nothing more. With your study guide and MPEP being highlighted, tabbed and marked up, it allows you to take as great an advantage of your limited look-up opportunities as possible.

However, simply studying the guide and the MPEP will not likely be enough. Our program requires that you understand the key questions that are discussed on the CDs and in live class sessions, and do the practice exams to get the necessary timing, learn the exam tricks and hammer home the critical points.

You and I are a team in getting through this most difficult of rites of passage, and we will do anything in our power to get you through. If you have a question or need help on a given point, drop me an email at JRLpatent@aol.com or call and we’ll sort it out.

You can and will pass this exam.