After hundreds of hours of preparation, I finally passed the USPTO Registration Exam. Soon I will be a registered patent agent and can begin prosecuting patent applications before the USPTO!

It took nearly two years to obtain a passing score while working full-time and studying when I could. It is just as much a test of stamina as it is of patent law and procedure; to succeed you need to be comfortable sitting for prolonged periods while reading dense material and sustaining your critical thinking. It's 6 hours start to finish, which equates to roughly 3.5 minutes per question without checking answers. You will need to practice and develop a strategy to succeed.

A few high-level observations from my practice and test-taking:

• I was enrolled in the PLI course, which is more or less the gold standard for patent bar prep. It shows its age at times (especially concerning pre-AIA), but it's a good self-study program. I considered other options when I wasn't passing, but PLI ultimately got me over the finish line. See my practice log below.

• I took a number of full-length practice exams, to the point of memorizing questions and answers. The publicly available exams are dated and easier than the real thing — that said, it's worth beating them to death, as a number of questions are recycled in contemporary tests.

• You need to know the MPEP landscape inside and out. The test is open book, but that only helps insofar as you have a laser sight on exactly where to look up a tricky answer. Otherwise, reason it out or pull it from memory.

• Topics that came up that I wasn't fully prepared for: nuances in restriction practice and derivation proceedings, client representation, civil litigation, appeals, and post-grant proceedings. These appeared on every test day, and I improved by treating them as serious knowledge gaps rather than edge cases.

and a few practical test taking tips I found helpful:

• I booked a hotel for the night before. I just wanted to get up, have a short ride/walk to the testing center, and not worry about a long drive, making breakfast, or cleaning prior. Think this helped a bit.

• I wrote out the months of the year in the 10min tutorial period on my scratch paper. I also wrote out 50 question slots (5 columns of 10) to physically mark which questions I felt confident in (checkmark), made a good guess/would look up with time ("?"), or where I totally guessed and had no clue ("X"). This REALLY helped me have a realistic idea of how many points I had racked up by the end of the exam, which was probably around 60-65. I had maybe 5-10 X's, and 20-30 ?'s, which gave me confidence that I had probably gotten enough to pass, which is all that matters. I also noted on the top of each column what time I should see on the clock at the right pace to know if I was ahead or behind.

Below I offer up some resources I used/created to anyone who may want to use them. Outside of that, I highly recommend the Patent Office Exam Prep Course through PLI for self-study and joining the PatentBar Prep discord server to form study groups, commiserate, and celebrate when you finally pass.