Chapter IV – Examination of the WO‑ISA and replies
1. General procedure
Under Chapter II, the reply to the WO‑ISA, WO-IPEA (Form 408) or telephone minutes with possible amendments will be examined.
The final result of this examination under Chapter II is the issuance of the IPER (see GL/PCT‑EPO C‑VIII).
The examiner will first consider whether the objections raised in the WO‑ISA have been overcome by the submitted arguments and/or amendments. If this is the case, the IPER will be issued directly, provided that the top-up search does not yield any pertinent prior art (see GL/PCT‑EPO C‑IV, 5.4). If objections have not been overcome or if pertinent prior art is found in the top-up search (see GL/PCT‑EPO C‑IV, 5.3 and GL/PCT‑EPO C-IV, 5.4), a further WO-IPEA or telephone minutes should be issued as set out in GL/PCT‑EPO C‑IV, 2.2.
If a further WO-IPEA or telephone minutes setting a time limit for reply are issued, the examiner will examine any reply from the applicant and will then as a rule draft the IPER directly even if objections still occur, unless there is an outstanding request for a telephone consultation (see GL/PCT‑EPO C‑IV, 2.2, and C‑VII, 1). An exception could be if it is clear that minor amendments could be suggested during e.g. a short telephone consultation which would result in a positive IPER, so that it would appear procedurally expedient to solve these problems in the Chapter II phase.