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CHAPTER II PROCEDURE FOR AMENDMENTS TO DOCUMENTS 1. Amendment by submitting missing documents or by filing replacement pages The content of a European patent application or patent may be amended within the limits laid down in Art. 123(2) and (3). (For the conditions governing amendments, see also A-V, 2, C-VI, 5 and D-V, 6). This will normally be done by submitting missing documents or by filing replacement pages. Replacement pages for the request for grant, description, claims, drawings and abstract are to be filed in triplicate. Where replacement pages are filed the applicant or patent proprietor should, in the interests of procedural efficiency, identify clearly all amendments made, and indicate on which passages of the original application these amendments are based. 2. Amendments using copies Amendments, particularly to the description or claims, may be made by using copies in accordance with the following procedure: If he deems it expedient, the examiner or formalities officer may, on a copy of one or more pages of the documents to be amended, put forward suggestions as to how amendments should be made in such a way as to take account of the objections raised. The annotated copies (not the working documents which are to remain in the dossier) will then be forwarded to the applicant or, in opposition proceedings, to the proprietor of the patent and the other parties, in the communication setting out the objections. In this communication, the applicant or proprietor will not only be informed of the deficiencies recorded and invited to adopt a position or submit amendments within a fixed time limit, but shall also be invited simultaneously to resubmit the said copy and - as an alternative to submitting replacement pages - to indicate on this copy, separately from the comments of the examiner (preferably typewritten and in such a way as to be well legible after photocopying), any amendments to be made to the pages concerned. Opponents may also be invited to submit their comments in the same way. The parties may also submit copies of one or more amended pages on their own initiative. The filing of completely retyped documents should normally be objected to, for reasons of procedural economy, as these documents will have to be checked for correspondence with the original documents (see T 113/92, not published in OJ). Only where the amendments are so extensive as to affect the legibility of the copies, replacement pages must be filed. In this case such pages may also be requested by the examiner on his own initiative. 3. Amendments made by the EPO at the request of a party and amendments made by a party at the EPO Where necessary, deficient documents may also be amended at the request of a party by the competent department of the EPO. This will be the procedure for minor amendments, e.g. where it is necessary to insert details which were omitted in the request for grant, and the number of amendments involved is not excessively large, or where whole pages or paragraphs are to be deleted. The party concerned should submit a list summarizing the amendments to be undertaken by the Office. This procedure is also to be followed for minor amendments to drawings, e.g. for amending a reference number or deleting one or more whole figures (as regards the removal of references following an amendment to the description, see C-II, 4.8). In the case of complicated amendments to drawings, where it is not immediately clear how the changes are to be made, the party concerned, who as a rule is the applicant or proprietor, must submit replacement pages. A party may also make amendments himself at the EPO, for example when he attends to sign documents.

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