Before initiating the protest procedure the formal admissibility of the protest in the sense of Rule 68.3(c) (Chapter II) must be checked.[Rule 68.3(c); (e); GL/ISPE 10.79; ]

To be admissible the protest should satisfy the following requirements:

The reasoned statement must comply with Rule 68.3(c); i.e. applicants should argue why the international application complies with the requirement of unity of invention or why the amount of the required additional fee is excessive. In the protest applicants should question the number of additional examination fees that they have been invited to pay, and not the amount of a single additional fee.

The payment of the protest fee and the filing of a purported reasoned statement are assessed by specially trained formalities officers. If the formalities officer finds any deficiencies, the applicant is informed of them by way of Form 420 or Form 424. Any substantive analysis is made by the Review Panel when assessing the justification of the protest.