- The Examining Authority shall refer the international application as per the provisions and regulations under the Treaty, in the order in which the demand was received in the Examining Authority to an examiner or any other officer appointed for preparing the International Preliminary Examination Report.
- It shall ordinarily be prepared within a period of 3 months from the date of such reference.
- For those claims for which international search report was not carried out, shall not be subject for International Examination.
- If the Examining Authority considers, that
- the subject matter of the international application does not require to carry out an international preliminary examination and decides not to examine, or
- the description, drawings or claims are so unclear or inadequately supported, for which no meaningful opinion can be formed on the patentablity criterion, the Examining Authority shall not examine the application and shall intimate the applicant on the reasons.
- If certain claims alone fall under the above category for which examination cannot be performed; the Examining Authority shall perform the international examination for the remaining claims alone stating the same in the International Preliminary Examination Report.
- If an international application is found non-compliance with the requirement Unity of Invention by the Examining Authority, they shall invite the applicant, to restrict the claims or to pay an additional fees. A notice shall be issued to the applicant with:
- details of at least one possible restriction that would state the application non-compliant to the requirement;
- details of reasons for which the the international application is not considered compliant with the unity of invention requirement;
- invitation for the applicant to comply with the requirement within one month from the notice date;
- indication on the amount of additional fees required to be paid, if he chooses to comply with the requirements
- invitation to pay the protest fee (if applicable) along with the indication of amount, within 1 month from the date of notice
- If the applicant considers that the notice on requirement for unity of invention is not acceptable; he shall pay the additional fee under protest accompanied with a reasoned statement to that effect stating how the invention falls under the requirement of unity of invention.
- Examination of protest shall be carried out by review committee constituted by the Controller
- After the review committee’s examination, if the invention falls fully or partly under unity of invention requirement for the satisfaction of the Controller; the fee so paid as additional fee shall be refunded fully or partially.
- If the protest was entirely justified then the protest fee so paid shall be fully refunded.