If amended claims were filed (see IX, 3.1) on an international application before its transmission to the EPO, these should be considered together with any accompanying explanatory statement, in the same way as for other amendments filed prior to the examiner's first communication with the applicant (see C-VI, 3 and 9.4).

The examination must be conducted in accordance with Art. 28 PCT, which stipulates that the applicant must be given the opportunity to amend the claims, the description, and the drawings within a time limit prescribed pursuant to Rule 52.1(b) PCT (see also Rules 107(1)(b) and 109).

If no supplementary search report is required (see IX, 5.4), if only part of the claimed subject-matter has been searched by the ISA, because of a lack of unity objection and the applicant has not paid all respective additional search fees, and if the Examining Division deems the objection to apply to the claims under examination, the applicant should first be informed that, in accordance with Rule 112, a European search report can be obtained in respect of those parts of the application which have not been searched, provided that a search fee is paid within a specified period for each invention involved. This communication must be issued 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 C-III, 7.11 and C-VI, 5.2(ii)).

In all other respects the substantive examination should be carried out as for any other European application.