Guidelines for Examination

Also, when the claims of the application do not relate to one invention only, nor to a group of inventions linked so as to form a single general inventive concept, the search will normally be restricted to the invention or the linked group of inventions first mentioned in the claims (see B-VII). Restriction of the search for the above reasons will be notified to the applicant in a communication accompanying the partial search report (see B-VII, 1.2).