The purpose of examination is to ensure that the application and the invention to which it relates meet the requirements set out in the relevant Articles of the EPC and the Rules of its Implementing Regulations. The prime task of the Examining Division is to deal with the substantive requirements; the criteria by which an examiner judges whether they have been met are dealt with in detail, insofar as appears necessary, in Chapters II to V. As for the formal requirements (see Part A), these are initially the responsibility of the Receiving Section. As soon as the application has passed to the Examining Division, that Division will have ultimate responsibility, but formal matters will normally be dealt with by a formalities officer. The examiner should not spend time checking the work done by the Receiving Section or the formalities officer, but if he believes a formalities report is incorrect or incomplete he should refer the application to the formalities officer for further consideration.

The examination is to be carried out in accordance with Art. 96(2) and (3), Art. 97, Rule 51(2) to (11) and Rule 52. The examiner's first step is to study the description, drawings (if any) and the claims of the application. However, as the examiner will normally already have done this when he carried out the search (see B-XII, 3), he should concentrate on any amendments and/or comments filed by the applicant in response to the search opinion.