1.2 Invitation to pay further search fees 

The search division will inform the applicant of the lack of unity of invention in a communication accompanying its partial search report and invite them to pay a further search fee for each invention other than the one first mentioned in the claims if they want the search to cover these inventions as well. Together with this invitation, the applicant will receive a provisional opinion on the patentability of the invention or unitary group of inventions first mentioned in the claims (see F‑V, 3.4) and the reasons for the non-unity findings. This provisional opinion is for information only and the applicant does not need to reply to the points raised in it. If the applicant nevertheless submits a reply, the search division will not take it into account when drawing up the extended European search report (see the notice from the EPO dated 3 March 2017, OJ EPO 2017, A20).