3. Amendments prior to the start of international preliminary examination  

When filing the demand, the applicant should indicate on Form PCT/IPEA/401 which documents should form the basis for international preliminary examination. These may be:

– the international application as originally filed, or 

– amendments to the claims under Art. 19 and/or

– amendments to the claims, the description and/or sequence listings filed as a part thereof and/or the drawings under Art. 34(2)(b).

The applicant may have filed amended claims under Art. 19 with the International Bureau after receipt of the search report and before the demand was filed. When filing the demand, the applicant may revert to the originally filed claims, reversing the amendments made according to Art. 19. If this is the case, preliminary examination proceeds on the basis of the originally filed set of claims.

Amendments and/or arguments filed under Art. 34 should preferably be filed together with the demand. Where the applicant indicates in the statement concerning amendments filed with the demand that it is doing so, but fails to actually submit the amendments with the demand, the EPO as IPEA will invite the applicant to submit them within a set time limit (Form PCT/IPEA/431). Where the applicant has expressly requested postponement of the start of international preliminary examination until expiry of the time limit under Rule 54bis.1(a), the EPO as IPEA will take into account any amendments and/or arguments under Art. 34 which are filed before then (see also GL/PCT‑EPO C‑VI, 1).

The examiner should carefully check that the examination is based on the correct set of documents.