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The Search Division will inform the applicant of the lack of unity of invention in a communication accompanying the partial search report and indicate that a further search fee must be paid for each invention other than the one first mentioned in the claims, if the search is to cover these inventions as well. The payment of these fees must take place within a period to be set by the Search Division, which may not be less than two weeks and may not be more than six weeks (Rule 46(1)). Searches relating to inventions for which further search fees have been paid within the fixed period receive preferential treatment from the Search Division. The search report is to be drawn up for all those parts of the patent application which relate to inventions in respect of which search fees have been paid. The search report identifies the separate inventions and indicates the subject-matter and corresponding claims (or parts of claims - see Rule 30(2)) for which a search has been made.
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Rule 46(1)
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