It is possible to make suggestions in the written opinion as to how certain objections raised may be overcome. However, examiners must not actually, of their own volition, make any final amendments to the application documents, however minor, for the reason that only amendments submitted by the applicant may be taken into consideration for the IPER.

Dependent claims should be indicated as complying or not with the requirements of novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability. Short statements of the reasons why the claims do not comply with these requirements should be given on the separate sheet. At the discretion of the examiner, more detailed comments may be made about selected dependent claims. If any claims are found to be novel and inventive, brief reasons for this too should be given on the separate sheet.

The opinion given in the WO‑ISA is restricted to what has actually been searched; this should also be made clear in the WO‑ISA.

A full explanation of the conclusions reached should always be given for all searched claims, regardless of whether this conclusion is positive or negative. Normally only one independent claim in each category is treated in detail; for negative conclusions regarding further independent claims, as well as for dependent claims, comments may be shorter.

Section B‑XI, 3.1, in the Guidelines for Examination in the EPO applies mutatis mutandis.

The EPO acting as ISA accepts international applications drawn up in Dutch if the application was filed with the Netherlands patent office as RO.[Rules 12.4; 43.4; 48.3; OJ EPO 2017, A115; OJ EPO 2018, A17; OJ EPO 2018, A24; ]

Therefore, for such files, a translation is not required for th