As indicated in B-II, 4.3, for certain international applications entering the European phase with an international search report, no supplementary search is carried out. The following situations may then be distinguished during substantive examination:

(i) if during the international search performed by one of said Offices an objection of lack of unity has been raised and the applicant has not taken the opportunity to have the other invention(s) searched by paying additional search fees for them, but has taken the opportunity to amend the claims after receipt of the international search report so that they are limited to the invention searched and has indicated that examination is to be carried out on these amended claims, the examiner proceeds on the basis of these claims.

(ii) if, in the above case, the applicant has not amended the claims so that they are limited to the invention searched and the examiner agrees with the objection of the International Searching Authority, he will first invite the applicant to pay further search fees, within a period which may not be shorter than two weeks and may not exceed six weeks, if the applicant wishes the application to be examined on the basis of any of the other inventions.

This communication must be sent before the first communication pursuant to Art. 96(2) and Rule 51(2) is issued.

A communication pursuant to Rule 112 is also issued in those cases where the examination is to be based on a set of claims which, although relating to only one of the originally claimed inventions, has not been covered by the international search due to non-payment of an additional search fee for that invention.

If, however, the claims to be examined relate to an invention which differs from any of the originally claimed inventions and which does not combine with these inventions to form a single inventive concept, no communication pursuant to Rule 112 is issued. Instead, an objection under Rule 86(4) should be raised in the first communication pursuant to Art. 96(2) and Rule 51(2) (see also VI, 5.2(ii)).

If the applicant does not pay the above-mentioned further search fees, he will be taken to have elected that the application proceeds on the basis of the first claims, namely those upon which a search has been performed, and he will have to delete the subject-matter related to the other inventions.

If the applicant pays the further search fees, a search report will be drawn up under Rule 112 and a communication under Article 96(2) and Rule 51(2) will be issued (see B-XII, 8(i)), in respect of those inventions for which the further search fees have been paid. The applicant will have then to indicate on the basis of which invention the application is to proceed and limit the application accordingly. If the applicant has not yet indicated this, the examiner should invite the applicant to state on which invention the prosecution of the application is to be based and to limit the application accordingly by excising those parts belonging to the other inventions.

In both cases (i) and (ii), the applicant may file divisional applications for the inventions removed to meet the objection of non-unity (see VI, 9, and A-IV, 1).

(iii) if the applicant has not paid additional search fees during the international phase and the examiner does not agree with the objection of the International Searching Authority, an additional search will be performed (see B-II, 4.2(iii)) and the examination will be carried out on all claims.

(iv) if the applicant has paid additional search fees during the international phase, he may determine that the application is to proceed on the basis of any of the searched inventions, the other(s) being deleted, if the examiner agrees with the objection of the International Search Authority. Where the applicant has not yet taken that decision, the examiner will, at the beginning of substantive examination, invite him to do so.