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Lord Justice Vos:
This appeal concerns food frying machines, or more particularly “dry fryers”. The European Patent EP 2 085 003 B1 (the “Patent”) in issue is entitled in translation “a fryer with automatic fat coating”; it had an unchallenged priority date of 8 th June 2004 and a filing date of 8 th June 2005. The defendant and 1 st Part 20 claimant, SEB SA, is the proprietor of the Patent. Groupe SEB UK Limited, the 2 nd Part 20 claimant, claims to be the exclusive licensee under the Patent. The two SEB entities are referred to together in this judgment as “SEB”.
The claimant, Jarden Consumer Solutions (Europe) Limited, (“Jarden”) manufactures the Breville Halo Health Fryer (the “Halo”), which competes with SEB’s product, namely the Tefal Actifry fryer (the “Actifry”).
On 28 th February 2014, Arnold J delivered judgment deciding that claims 1, 3 and 8 of the Patent were invalid, that claims 1 and 3 would have been infringed if they had been valid, and that claims 10, 11 and 13 were valid and had been infringed. SEB do not appeal the findings of invalidity as to claims 1, 3 and 8. But Jarden appeals the judge’s construction of the Patent and the finding of infringement of claims 10, 11, and 13, with the permission of the judge.
Stripped of all complexity, the Patent concerns an apparatus for frying food, particularly chips, that involves the use of only a small quantity of oil, by automatically stirring and turning (or “mingling” in the terminology of the Patent) the food so as to coat it in a thin film of oil or fat and cooking it (at least in the preferred embodiment) by a directed flow of heat. The main features of the apparatus that accomplish this, which are relevant to this case, according to the Patent, are:-
“the main body 2” which is provided with a “lid 2C”, forming a closed box in co-operation with “the side skirt 2B”, and “the base 2A”;
“a receiver means 5” or receptacle, which is substantially sealed against liquids, designed to contain both the food and the fat;
“a stirrer means 6” with “a blade 16” designed to move with respect to the receiver means, so as to mingle and stir the food and fat;
“a main heater means 24” to generate a “flow of heat 25” orientated so as to strike the food directly.
Jarden’s primary contention is that the judge misinterpreted the term “the main body” as including the lid of the fryer. One of its main contentions is that the judge wrongly made use of identifying numerals in the Patent to construe its mean