Once the applicant has approved the text communicated to him pursuant to Rule 71(3), by paying the fees and filing the translation of the claims, possibly including minor amendments and/or corrections, further requests for amendment will only exceptionally be allowed under the discretionary power of the Examining Division given by Rule 137(3). A clear example of an allowable request is where the applicant files separate sets of claims for designated States that made reservations under Art. 167(2) EPC 1973 (see III, 8.3) or for which prior national rights exist (see III, 8.4). Similarly, it is appropriate to admit minor amendments which do not require re-opening of the substantive examination and which do not appreciably delay the issue of the decision to grant (see G 7/93, OJ 11/1994, 775). If these amendments involve changes to the claims, these should of course be accompanied by translations, as required by Rule 71(4).

However, once the decision to grant is handed over to the EPO's internal postal service for transmittal to the applicant, the Examining Division is bound by it (see G 12/91, OJ 5/1994, 285) and can only amend it to the limited extent provided for in Rule 140 (see E-X, 10).