2.1

Documents making up the European patent application

The physical requirements which the documents making up the European patent application, i.e. request, description, claims, drawings and abstract, must satisfy are set out in Rule 35 and with regard to drawings in Rule 32. Notes on the preparation of OCR-readable patent applications were published in OJ 1-2/1993, 59. In relation to the drawings, the particular requirements are dealt with in Chapter X. The latter Chapter should, however, also be consulted with regard to the other documents mentioned, as the comments therein on the provisions of Rule 35 are of general application. Here, attention need only be drawn to Rule 35(9) which states that "the lines of each sheet of the description and of the claims shall preferably be numbered in sets of five, the numbers appearing on the left side, to the right of the margin".