6.1.12.7 Date of Actual Completion of the Search

Also in this Chapter:

• 6.1.12.1 Background Search Report and Notification Form Completion

• 6.1.12.2 Applicant Details

• 6.1.12.3 General Details - ISR

• 6.1.12.4 Fields Searched - ISR

• 6.1.12.5 Documents Considered to be Relevant

• 6.1.12.6 Family Member Identification​​​​​​​

• 6.1.12.8 Refund Due

• 6.1.12.9 Contents of Case File at Completion

Related Chapters:

• 3.2 Customer Service Charter (Timeliness Standards)

• 6.1.12.8 Refund Due

• 6.1.13 Reissued, Amended or Corrected ISRs and ISOs

• Annex H - IPE Quality Checklist

• Annex U - ISR Quality Checklist

On this page

• Authorised officer

• Timing considerations

• Quality of reports

• Cases where an explanatory letter may be included

Authorised officer

The ‘date of the actual completion of the international search’ depends on whether the search examiner is an authorised officer.

Where the search examiner is an authorised officer, the date the examiner completed the search report will be the ‘date of the actual completion of the international search’.

Where the search examiner is not an authorised officer, upon completing the notification and report, the case should be referred to the responsible examiner. The date that the responsible examiner concurs with the search report will be the ‘date of the actual completion of the international search’.  

However, for re-issued and corrected reports, note the guidance in 6.1.13 Reissued, Amended or Corrected ISRs and ISOs.

Timing considerations

Under normal circumstances the International Search Report (ISR) and the International Search Opinion (ISO) should be completed within 9 weeks of filing of the PCT application, and in all cases within 3 months of receipt of the search copy. See 3.2 Customer Service Charter (Timeliness Standards) for apology time limits.

Quality of reports

Examination sections have prime responsibility for eliminating the errors occurring in reports. They must aim to eliminate errors in reports with effective quality assurance procedures. 

An ISR check sheet is provided at Annex U - ISR Quality Checklist. A check sheet for international examination is provided at Annex H - IPE Quality Checklist.

Cases where an explanatory letter may be included

Applicants may provide the details of an earlier search that may have been conducted in Box VII-2 of the PCT request form (RO/101). An example of an earlier search may be an article 15(5) international-type search on a provisional application. In these cases it may not be obvious to an applicant why the PCT search report (the later search report) differs from the earlier search report referred to in Box VII-2 of the request of the PCT application. Therefore, it may be appropriate for an explanatory letter to accompany the later search report. An explanatory letter, if included, can be created using form PCT/ISA/224 'Communication in cases for which no Other Form is Applicable' (see RIO for Patents Manual (Create Correspondence Task)). This letter could anticipate possible complaints by stating, for example:

• that new citations were reported because they were found in an updated search

• that the claims searched in the later application were of a different scope than the earlier search statement, or the like.

A senior or supervising examiner should authorise such explanatory letters.

See also, 6.1.12.8 Refund Due.