Following receipt of the search report and prior to the first communication from the examining division, the applicantmay file comments on the search report and if applicable on the search opinion and amendments to the description, claims or drawings. These amendments may be submitted to overcome the objections raised in the search opinion or they may be suggested for some other reason, e.g. to remedy some obscurity which the applicant himself has noted in the original documents.

With a written request for accelerated examination under the programme for accelerated prosecution of European patent applications (PACE), the applicant can speed up the proceedings at the examination stage (see Notice of the President of the EPO, OJ 10/2001, 459 and E-VIII, 3).