PCT Receiving Office Guidelines

Chapter VI: Article 14 Check and Other Formal Requirements

Check List

149. Indications Made by the Applicant. The purpose of the check list in Box No. IX of the request, which should be completed by the applicant, is to allow the receiving Office to verify whether all sheets and any sequence listing intended to constitute the international application and all items to accompany it were filed. The receiving Office checks whether the applicant has correctly completed the check list, failing which it makes the necessary annotations (Rule 3.3, Section 313 and paragraphs 150 to 152 and 222 to 224). The actual number of sheets constituting each element of the international application as well as their total and the presence of sequence listing part of the description in ST.26 XML format (if any) on the international filing date should be indicated. Thus, the receiving Office counts the sheets of the record copy (which includes the request but not the fee calculation sheet) and checks whether the number of sheets of the international application and the items which accompany it correspond to the indications made by the applicant in Box No. IX of the request. As regards the request, there must be at least three sheets, namely, the "first sheet," the "second sheet" and the "last sheet." As regards any sequence listing part of the description, the check list should reflect the presence of the ST.26 XML electronic file (paragraph 222). The language of filing of the application should be indicated; if it is not, the receiving Office should preferably make the indication ex officio (paragraphs 161 to 165); the applicant should subsequently be invited to indicate the language only if the receiving Office is not in a position to determine in which language the international application was filed.

150. Annotations by the Receiving Office. If any item which is indicated in the check list as accompanying the international application has not, in fact, been received at the latest by the time the record copy is transmitted by the receiving Office, that Office so notes on the check list and the said indication is considered as if it had not been made. Where the check list does not indicate all the items which were in fact filed, the receiving Office completes the check list as provided for in Rule 3.3(b) and enters, in the margin, the words "COMPLETED BY RO" or their equivalent in the language of publication of the international application. Where the receiving Office completes only some of the indications, it identifies the said words and each added indication by an asterisk (Section 313, paragraphs 161 to 165 and Annex B).

151. The receiving Office does not check whether the applicant has indicated any figure of the drawings which should accompany the abstract. However, where the receiving Office finds a clear indication of that figure either in the text of the international application, for example on the page of the abstract, or on a separate sheet accompanying the international application, it should include that indication in Box No. IX of the request.

152. Where sheets filed on the international filing date have been renumbered (paragraphs 139 and 140), the total number of sheets indicated in the check list may need to be corrected and the payment of an additional fee for each sheet in excess of 30 required (paragraphs 241 to 249A). The applicant's attention should be drawn to the fact that the check list has been corrected.