examination are conducted by different national or regional patent offices, referred to as the International Searching Authorities (ISA) and the International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) Applicants, based on nationality and on the Receiving Office where the application was filed, may have an opportunity to have the search performed by one of the ISAs. The relevant provisions in the regulations The regulations under the PCT do touch on the search and examination of computer programs. states that states that According to the Board of Appeal 3.5.1 of the EPO, these provisions mean that the ISA and IPEA authorities are not required to carry out searches or preliminary examinations in respect of programs if, for example, they have no examiners trained to do so or are not equipped with appropriate search material. The Board went on to say: These provisions deal only with the international searches and international preliminary examinations and not with the national and regional searches or examinations. Practices by ISA and IPEA The different ISA and IPEA have made use of the legal provisions of Articles 17(2)(a)(i) and 34(4)(a)(i) PCT in conjunction with Rules 39.1 and 67.1 in a different manner. In addition, as mentioned above, the ISA and IPEA that have made use of these provisions have diverging practices with respect to determinations of exclusions as to computer programs. For instance, the European Patent Office (EPO), acting as ISA and IPEA, is not be obliged to search, by virtue of Article 17(2)(a)(i) PCT, or examine, by virtue of Article 34(4)(a)(i) PCT, any international application to the extent that the EPO considers that such application relates to subject matter which does not comply with the provisions of the European Patent Convention to such an extent that it is not possible to carry out a meaningful search into the state of the art on the basis of all or some of the claims. The EPO acting as ISA or IPEA in the PCT procedure is therefore not obliged to search or examine some PCT applications when not equipped to do so. Origin and interpretive significance of the provisions The computer program exclusion of Rule 39.1 PCT, which originally appears to be for "equipment" reasons, dates from 1969: Rule 39.1 PCT is significant from an interpretive perspective to understand the origin of the much debated (see Software patents under the European Patent Convention (EPC) and Article 52 EPC). The computer program