“A seat unit for a passenger seating system for an aircraft, the seat unit defining a notional longitudinal seat axis (C-C) and comprising a supporting structure (42) adapted for attaching the seat unit to a floor of an aircraft (12) and means forming or being configurable for forming a seat comprising a seat-pan (71) and a back rest (72), said seat unit being adapted to be arranged side-by-side with at least one further seat unit to form a column defining a notional longitudinal column axis (B-B), in which column said seat-unit is adapted to be arranged in longitudinally offset relation at an acute angle to the notional column axis (B-B), the seat unit being arranged to be disposed adjacent a sidewall (26,28) of the aircraft and face inwardly thereby to define between the rear of each seat and the sidewall a space (36) when the seat unit is configured as a seat, the seat unit further comprising means forming or being configurable for forming a substantially flat bed (47,48,67,74,76), so that when the seat unit is formed into a bed a major proportion of the bed is disposed forwardly of the position that was occupied by the seat, and characterised in that the flat-bed extends into said rearward space (36) behind the seat”
“179. Although I have decided that the claim for infringement of design right fails, I must nevertheless set out the facts about what Contour actually do, in case I am wrong in my conclusion. The facts were more or less common ground. They are relevant both to the case on design right and also to the case on patent infringement. 180. Contour manufacture and supply Solar Eclipse and its derivatives into individual passenger accommodation units PAUs. The manufacturing takes place in the United Kingdom at Contour’s premises in Cwmbran. They do not make delivery of individual PAUs since it is more usual for customers to insist upon the full number of PAUs for a shipset to be delivered in one go. However the shipset itself is assembled in its herringbone form on board the aircraft to be fitted with the shipset. To date all such assembly has taken place outside the United Kingdom. The assembly itself is carried out by the aircraft manufacturer or the airline’s appointed maintenance provider. 181. Before shipment Contour temporarily assembles a small number of seat units on the shop floor (and without attachment to aircraft seat tracks) so that the customer and aircraft manufacturer can inspect them. However an entire shipset is never assembled in the UK for this purpose.”
“As Ms Anderson QC rightly reminded me, the court must be careful before giving summary judgment on a claim. The correct approach on applications by defendants is, in my judgment, as follows: i) The court must consider whether the claimant has a ‘realistic’ as opposed to a ‘fanciful’ prospect of success: Swain v Hillman[2001] 2 All ER 91 ; ii) A ‘realistic’ claim is one that carries some degree of conviction. This means a claim that is more than merely arguable: ED & F Man Liquid Products v Patel[2003] EWCA Civ 472 at [8]. iii) In reaching its conclusion the court must not conduct a ‘mini-trial’: Swain v Hillman. iv) This does not mean that the court must take at face value and without analysis everything that a claimant says in his statements before the court. In some cases it may be clear that there is no real substance in factual assertions made, particularly if contradicted by contemporaneous documents: ED & F Man Liquid Products v Patel at [10]. v) However, in reaching its conclusion the court must take into account not only the evidence actually placed before it on the application for summary judgment, but also the evidence that can reasonably be expected to be available at trial: Royal Brompton Hospital NHS Trust v Hammond (No 5)[2001] EWCA Civ 550 . vi) Although a case may turn out at trial not to be really complicated, it does not follow that it should be decided without the fuller investigation into the facts at trial than is possible or permissible on summary judgment. Thus the court should hesitate about making a final decision without a trial, even where there is no obvious conflict of fact at the time of the application, where reasonable grounds exist for believing that a fuller investigation into the facts of the case would add to or alter the evidence available to a trial judge and so affect the outcome of the case: Doncaster Pharmaceuticals Group Ltd v Bolton Pharmaceutical Co 100 Ltd[2007] FSR 63 . vii) On the other hand it is not uncommon for an application under Part 24 to give rise to a short point of law or construction and, if the court is satisfied that it has before it all the evidence necessary for the proper determination of the question and that the parties have had an adequate opportunity to address it in argument, it should grasp the nettle and decide it. The reason is quite simple: if the respondent's case is bad in law, he will in truth have no real prospect of succeeding on his claim or successfully defending the claim against him, as the case may be. Similarly, if the applicant's case is bad in law, the sooner that is determined, the better. If it is possible to show by evidence that although material in the form of documents or oral evidence that would put the documents in another light is not currently before the court, such material is likely to exist and can be expected to be available at trial, it would be wrong to give summary judgment because there would be a real, as opposed to a fanciful, prospect of success. However, it is not enough simply to argue that the case should be allowed to go to trial because something may turn up which would have a bearing on the question of construction: ICI Chemicals & Polymers Ltd v TTE Training Ltd[2007] EWCA Civ 725 .”
“The difficulty that arises where it is sought to strike out a patent action on the ground that there is no arguable case of infringement arises because the construction of a patent, though a question of law for the court, is not a mere question of the judge reading the patent with the assistance of the legal arguments of counsel; it is a much more sophisticated exercise for two reasons. First the language of the patent is deemed to have been addressed by the inventor not to a panel of equity draftsmen but to ‘the man skilled in the art’, and consequently the court has to consider what the language of the patent would mean not to lawyers, but to the man skilled in the art with his knowledge of the art. Secondly it has long been established that a person does not avoid infringing a patent if he departs from the strict requirements of the claims by what the man skilled in the art would recognise as an ‘obviously immaterial variant’ – (to adopt a phrase conveniently used by Nicholls LJ in Anchor Building Products Ltd v Redland Roof Tiles Ltd[1990] RPC 283 ).”
“I do not believe that the judge was right to conclude that the alternative case put forward by the patentees is unarguable upon the assumed facts. Despite the view as to the meaning of claim 20 which I have expressed above, it would not be right, at this stage of the action, to come to any concluded view as to the ambit of claim 20. The patent must be construed as a whole and the claims interpreted according to the Protocol on Interpretation. The subject of the specification is complicated. To come to a concluded view, the mantle of a man skilled in the art must be adopted. That will require the aid of expert evidence. The words of Dillon LJ in Strix v. Otter Controls Ltd which I have quoted, are in my view just as apt today after the Civil Court Practice Rules [sic] came into force as they were when the Rules of the Supreme Court were applicable.”
“Having looked at all the amendments, I still say that everything I said in that previous report about the background to and the general teaching of the VAA Patent still holds true.”
“procuring the manufacture and supply of shipsets of Solar Eclipse seat unit by Contour for exportation out of the United Kingdom, during the course of which each seat unit will be manufactured, tested, packaged and (where necessary) inspected only as a discrete article distinct and separate from any other seat unit does not infringe the Patent as amended.”
“One might have thought there was nothing more to say on this topic after Kirin-Amgen Inc v Hoechst Marion Roussel Ltd[2005] RPC 9 . The judge accurately set out the position, save that he used the old language of Art.69 EPC rather than that of the EPC 2000, a Convention now in force. The new language omits ‘the terms of’ from Art.69. No one suggested the amendment changes the meaning. We set out what the judge said, but using the language of the EPC 2000: [182] The task for the court is to determine what the person skilled in the art would have understood the patentee to have been using the language of the claim to mean. The principles were summarised by Jacob LJ in Mayne Pharma Pty Ltd v Pharmacia Italia SpA[2005] EWCA Civ 137 and refined by Pumfrey J in Halliburton Energy Services Inc v Smith International (North Sea) Ltd[2005] EWHC 1623 (Pat) following their general approval by the House of Lords in Kirin-Amgen Inc v Hoechst Marion Roussel Ltd[2005] RPC 9 . An abbreviated version of them is as follows: (i) The first overarching principle is that contained in Article 69 of the European Patent Convention. (ii) Article 69 says that the extent of protection is determined by the claims. It goes on to say that the description and drawings shall be used to interpret the claims. In short the claims are to be construed in context. (iii) It follows that the claims are to be construed purposively - the inventor's purpose being ascertained from the description and drawings. (iv) It further follows that the claims must not be construed as if they stood alone - the drawings and description only being used to resolve any ambiguity. Purpose is vital to the construction of claims. (v) When ascertaining the inventor's purpose, it must be remembered that he may have several purposes depending on the level of generality of his invention. Typically, for instance, an inventor may have one, generally more than one, specific embodiment as well as a generalised concept. But there is no presumption that the patentee necessarily intended the widest possible meaning consistent with his purpose be given to the words that he used: purpose and meaning are different. (vi) Thus purpose is not the be-all and end-all. One is still at the end of the day concerned with the meaning of the language used. Hence the other extreme of the Protocol - a mere guideline - is also ruled out by Article 69 itself. It is the terms of the claims which delineate the patentee's territory. (vii) It follows that if the patentee has included what is obviously a deliberate limitation in his claims, it must have a meaning. One cannot disregard obviously intentional elements. (viii) It also follows that where a patentee has used a word or phrase which, a contextually, might have a particular meaning (narrow or wide) it does not necessarily have that meaning in context. (ix) It further follows that there is no general ‘doctrine of equivalents.’ (x) On the other hand purposive construction can lead to the conclusion that a technically trivial or minor difference between an element of a claim and the corresponding element of the alleged infringement nonetheless falls within the meaning of the element when read purposively. This is not because there is a doctrine of equivalents: it is because that is the fair way to read the claim in context. (xi) Finally purposive construction leads one to eschew the kind of meticulous verbal analysis which lawyers are too often tempted by their training to indulge.” (i) The first overarching principle is that contained in Article 69 of the European Patent Convention. (ii) Article 69 says that the extent of protection is determined by the claims. It goes on to say that the description and drawings shall be used to interpret the claims. In short the claims are to be construed in context. (iii) It follows that the claims are to be construed purposively - the inventor's purpose being ascertained from the description and drawings. (iv) It further follows that the claims must not be construed as if they stood alone - the drawings and description only being used to resolve any ambiguity. Purpose is vital to the construction of claims. (v) When ascertaining the inventor's purpose, it must be remembered that he may have several purposes depending on the level of generality of his invention. Typically, for instance, an inventor may have one, generally more than one, specific embodiment as well as a generalised concept. But there is no presumption that the patentee necessarily intended the widest possible meaning consistent with his purpose be given to the words that he used: purpose and meaning are different. (vi) Thus purpose is not the be-all and end-all. One is still at the end of the day concerned with the meaning of the language used. Hence the other extreme of the Protocol - a mere guideline - is also ruled out by Article 69 itself. It is the terms of the claims which delineate the patentee's territory. (vii) It follows that if the patentee has included what is obviously a deliberate limitation in his claims, it must have a meaning. One cannot disregard obviously intentional elements. (viii) It also follows that where a patentee has used a word or phrase which, a contextually, might have a particular meaning (narrow or wide) it does not necessarily have that meaning in context. (ix) It further follows that there is no general ‘doctrine of equivalents.’ (x) On the other hand purposive construction can lead to the conclusion that a technically trivial or minor difference between an element of a claim and the corresponding element of the alleged infringement nonetheless falls within the meaning of the element when read purposively. This is not because there is a doctrine of equivalents: it is because that is the fair way to read the claim in context. (xi) Finally purposive construction leads one to eschew the kind of meticulous verbal analysis which lawyers are too often tempted by their training to indulge.”
“23. There was no significant controversy about this. The judge sets it out at [193] and we do not need to set it all out here. We will focus just on the bits that matter for present purposes. The skilled man would know about the important developments in aircraft seats and seating systems. In particular he would know about what were called BA First (disclosed in the BA Application), BA Yin Yang and other commercially used seat/bed systems. We borrow with gratitude and some modification part of the judge's descriptions of these. BA First 24. For the first class passenger, all this [i.e. simple seats which reclined but not as far as the horizontal] changed in 1996. In that year BA introduced a new seating system for its first class cabin called BA First, which allowed for a completely flat bed. It provided seats in individual "pods" or compartments formed by privacy screens. Each compartment consisted of both a seat and an ottoman (or footstool) which could be used both as part of the bed when the seat was laid flat and also as occasional seating by a guest passenger (hence it is sometimes called a "buddy seat"); and each seat was at a slight angle to the longitudinal axis of the plane, facing towards the cabin wall. This angled arrangement of seats is called a "herringbone". Where the seats face towards the aisle the herringbone is called an "inward facing herringbone"; otherwise it is called an "outward facing herringbone". The BA First seating arrangement was an outward facing herringbone, which BA had adopted in preference to an inward facing herringbone because it gave passengers more privacy. 25. The individual seat/bed pod of BA First was like this (the drawing is from the BA Application): A mechanism was provided so that the passenger could cause the seat to slide forward to meet the "ottoman". Note that the head portion moved slightly backwards within the pod – about 4 to 5 inches in practice. 26. An example of an inward herringbone was in fig. 4 of the BA Application: Although not in practice used by BA or any of the other airlines that followed the possibility of an inward facing herringbone was known to all. 27. The judge thought (see [194] – [197]) that an inward herringbone - because it was not seen "as a basis for further action" – did not count for the purposes of common general knowledge. However, at least for the purposes of considering the scope of a claim, if the reader knows of an idea and rightly assumes that the writer knew it too, then the reader will surely bear it in mind when trying to work out what the writer meant by the words he used. In other contexts, for instance obviousness, a well-known but unused idea may have less significance compared with one that was well in use. In this appeal the point does not really matter because neither side's case really depended on whether inward facing herring-bones were cgk. 28. BA First was a giant success. Other airlines followed (details are in the judgment at [5]). Initially it was all for first class, all with outward herringbones. American Airlines in 2000 used a variant with a swivelling seat. BA Yin Yang 29. Business class full length bed/seats came next. There is less room for these. BA came out with what was called the Yin Yang seat. It had interlocking seats in a head-to-toe formation; one passenger sitting and sleeping next to the aisle and the other sitting and sleeping next to the window. One of the two passengers faced forwards; and the other faced backwards. This arrangement of seats provided good density of accommodation. However, it had its drawbacks. The passenger in the seat further from the aisle had to climb over the other passenger to get in and out of his seat; and many passengers did not like the feeling of travelling backwards. Virgin J2000 30. This too was business class. The seats were arranged in conventional rows and columns. Although the J2000 provided a bed, it did so at a slight tilt; and was in the nature of a reclining seat. The foot of the bed had to be partially accommodated under the seat of the passenger in front. The J2000 was a moderate commercial success.”
“[0036] Embedded within the floor 30, the infra-structure of the fuselage 10 comprises a plurality of pairs of seat tracks 33, 34 of the kind well known to those skilled in the art… [0053] … Thus, the seating system in accordance with the present invention may be constituted by a plurality of seat modules as shown in FIG. 1A … By attaching a plurality of said seat modules 80 to a pair of seat tracks 32, 34 in a cabin 20, 21, a plurality of seat units 40 can be assembled, each unit 40 comprising the seat housing 43 of one module and the ottoman 65 of another adjacent module 80. [0054] … Each seat module 80, may be attached directly to seat track pair 32, 34 or, alternatively, the supporting structure 42 of each module 80 may comprise a plinth or palette (not shown), which plinth or palette is attached to seat tracks 32, 34….”
“A seating system as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein said aircraft comprises an accommodation cabin (20, 21) in which the seating system is located, which cabin defines a notional longitudinal cabin axis (A-A), and wherein said notional column axis (B-B) is substantially parallel to said cabin axis.”
“An accommodation cabin for an aircraft comprising a seating system as claimed in any preceding claim.”
“… over-meticulousness is not to be equated to carefulness. Care in working out what the patentee was aiming at when he chose the words he used is absolutely necessary.”
“ARTICLE 25 Prohibition of direct use of the invention A Community patent shall confer on its proprietor the right to prevent all third parties not having his consent: (a) from making, offering, putting on the market or using a product which is the subject-matter of the patent, or importing or stocking the product for these purposes; (b) from using a process which is the subject-matter of the patent or, when the third party knows, or it is obvious in the circumstances, that the use of the process is prohibited without the consent of the proprietor of the patent, from offering the process for use within the territories of the Contracting States; (c) from offering, putting on the market, using or importing or stocking for these purposes the product obtained directly by a process which is the subject-matter of the patent. ARTICLE 26 Prohibition of indirect use of the invention 1. A Community patent shall also confer on its proprietor the right to prevent all third parties not having his consent from supplying or offering to supply within the territories of the Contracting States a person, other than a party entitled to exploit the patented invention, with means relating to an essential element of that invention, for putting it into effect therein, when the third party knows, or it is obvious in the circumstances, that these means are suitable and intended for putting that invention into effect. 2. Paragraph 1 shall not apply when the means are staple commercial products, except when the third party induces the person supplied to commit acts prohibited by Article 25. 3. Persons performing the acts referred to in Article 27(a) to (c) shall not be considered to be parties entitled to exploit the invention within the meaning of paragraph 1.”
“6. A method of producing compost from decomposing vegetable matter substantially as herein described. 14. A compost bin substantially as described herein and with reference to the accompanying drawings.”
“Joint tortfeasance and allied matters As will be realised, the above conclusions have been reached on the assumption that the defendants themselves have been shown to have carried out the several acts which constitute infringement, but the matter is not as simple as that, because infringement is alleged both before and after the coming into force of the new 1977 Act. This in fact came into force on1 June 1978 , and it follows that conclusions also have to be reached on the meaning and effect of section 60 (2) of the new Act and of the Transitional Provisions which are to be found in Schedule 4 and particularly section 3. The facts are that the defendants themselves do not normally themselves make compost. No doubt they have made it experimentally at one time, though this is not proved. However they sold before the Act and now after the Act continue to sell kits of parts for their customers to build into bins. They issue full instructions (Bundle C, pp. 15 to 18) with every kit to enable the customer to do so. By virtue of these actions, in my judgment, the defendants are joint tortfeasors with their customers who erect and use their bins in accordance with the defendants' instructions. When a customer does so and makes compost, as he is told to do, he is in my judgment a joint tortfeasor with the defendants and they are similarly joint tortfeasors with him. Both have a common design within the meaning of The Koursk [1924] P. 140 and Morton-Norwich Products v. Intercen Ltd [1978] R.P.C. 501, respectively. Here the defendants are joint tortfeasors with Miss Harris who admittedly bought a kit of parts for a bin from the defendants and it is a proper inference that she made it up. It is not in fact positively proved that she made compost in it. However it is quite clear from their advertisements that the defendants invited their customers to make bins from the kits they sold and to use them for making compost. It is a fair inference that at least some of them did so and the defendants knew quite well that they would do so as alleged in the particulars of infringement. The same applies to Miss Harris. That being so I find the defendants to be joint tortfeasors with their customers, including Miss Harris, in infringing claim 6. As regards claim 14, the bin claim, the defendants here are not shown to have sold bins other than as a kit or parts with full instructions how to erect. For my part I do not think any practical distinction can be drawn from the point of view of infringement between the sale of an article in parts with full instructions how to put it together, at least where as here putting it together involves no more than the exercise of the practical ability possessed by the ordinary member of the public who may be expected to buy and does buy the article in question. I would draw no distinction here, and I do not think there is anything to the contrary established by the cases cited to me. In particular reliance was placed by the defendants on Belegging-Lavender v. Witton Industrial Diamonds [1979] F.S.R. 59, where it was stated that knowledge on the part of the sellers that the goods were intended for the purpose of infringing was not necessarily enough to make the seller guilty of infringement. This case was in fact not strictly concerned with the law of infringement but with the question whether the allegations in the pleading were sufficient. It is however said that there was no nexus there between the seller and whoever may have used the grit in question so as to be embedded in a resin bond. Here in all the circumstances of widespread advertisement and instructions issued with each kit of parts it is in my judgment fair and proper to assume a nexus between the defendants and their customers even if they are not specifically identified. It is argued for the defendants here that there is a difference between the pre-1977 law and the law as enacted in section 60 (2) of that Act. There is no doubt that under the latter section the defendants on the facts here have infringed both claims 6 and 14 by the sale of their kits of parts. Though the matter is not so clear under the old law, in my judgment, having regard to the facts, the same conclusion should be reached. It follows in my judgment that the defendants have infringed both claims 6 and 14, the latter directly, since I regard the kit of parts in the circumstances stated to be a ‘bin’ within the claim, so there is direct infringement. The only difficulty in respect of joint tortfeasance is the lack of actual proof of common design owing to the absence of positive evidence as to what the customers have done with the kits of parts and the bin when completed. It is however in my judgment fair and proper to infer that bins have been erected and have been used for making compost by the method claimed in claim 6. I think the law and our courts would fairly be open to criticism if they failed to take a realistic view of what in fact was clearly intended to take place and has certainly taken place in practice. If however I am wrong in this conclusion and not entitled to draw the inference in question, there is certainly infringement of claims 6 and 14 by the defendants who have procured their customers to infringe as alleged, knowing quite well that the customer would assemble the bin and use it in accordance with the defendants' instructions and thereby would infringe at least those claims. In any event therefore, even if joint tortfeasance within the meaning of The Koursk and Intercen cases ought not to be inferred, there is infringement by the defendants by way of procuring customers to infringe and I so hold.”
“It follows in my judgment that the defendants have infringed both claims 6 and 14, the latter directly, since I regard the kit of parts in the circumstances stated to be a ‘bin’ within the claim, so there is direct infringement.”
“Scaffolding for working in the interior of hollow elements of large dimensions such as tanks, quarries, etc., of the type made up of a support structure which is intended to rest on the ground and which is equipped with modular platforms mounted at variable heights in an overhanging manner on the periphery of said structure and means of access to said platforms characterized in that: (a) the said support structure is formed from two legs interconnected by at least two cross pieces forming floorings, located at different levels and stiffening the assembly; (b) the modular platforms are mounted on the external face of the said legs; (c) the means of access to the said platforms are disposed in or in the vicinity of the legs, and in that; (d) the legs of the support structure are each equipped with at least two lines of post feet, preferably three, disposed parallel to the longitudinal axis of the scaffolding, said post feet being vertically adjustable so as to allow temporary raising of at least one line of post feet per leg.”
“The present legal dispute has been initiated thereby, that respondent also sells its ‘Progreß’ machines in foreign countries and that in some of these machines retrofitting has taken place; namely, after their delivery to the foreign buyers, in their operation, in collaboration with installers of respondent, the gripper device has been retrofitted into a seam folding device. It is not disputed that the machines of respondents have had or characteristics of the patent in dispute after such a retrofitting. Plaintiff has claimed that this change had already been prepared on purpose at the operating location of respondent in Bielefeld; respondent were to have prepared the machines delivered to foreign countries in such a way that they could be provided with a seam folding device by simple, technical steps; inherent therein were a partial domestic production of the protected subject matter. Moreover, respondent were to have violated the patent in dispute by offering [machines] for sale domestically, because it had, during the negotiations in Bielefeld, offered to its foreign interested parties to retrofit the machines in the indicated manner during installation in the foreign country; it is said to have consented to provide them with a machine with a seam folding device.”
“In actuality the court of appeal especially deals with the case of the delivery of a machine to a company by the name of Örebro (Sweden). On the basis of the taking of evidence the court finds the following: witness J., chairman of the board of management and a member of the supervisory board of this company, appeared in person in September of 1950 at Defendant in Bielefeld for a machine of the type in question. He stated that his company already owned a machine from Plaintiff, built on the basis of the patent in suit and equipped with a folding device, and produced with its paper bags with cross-folded base labels. Since its customers have become accustomed to this design of the bags, the company attached value to acquire machines capable of producing the same bags. Defendant declared its willingness to fulfil this wish expressed by J. Defendant did actually refuse to produce machines with folding device at its operational facility by pointing to Plaintiff’s patent protection. It did however offered J. to equip the machine with a folding device by making a change easily to be accomplished and to be carried out in Sweden during the installation, with this change to be included in the price. As a result of this offer, the contract subsequently came about and was implemented.”
“1. The allegation of having manufactured an infringing temperature measuring device in Germany does concern the First Respondent already because it manufactured a completely functional and usable thermometer, as is illustrated in the diagram reproduced in the facts of the case of the disputed embodiment in the first place. The fact that said measuring device without a front end cap realises all the claim features of the patent subject to temporary injunction according to the wording is without a doubt. The First Respondent is also not exonerated by the fact that it did not market the measuring device in this state (i.e. without an end cap), but rather exclusively with an end cap, which eliminates the infringing function of the device. Because the individual modes of use reserved for the property owner through the patent are independent pursuant to §9 No. 1 German Patent Law, the attempt to approve the manufacturing actions only in light of that particular product in that particular form in which it is supposed to be marketed is already misguided. Manufacturing may indeed be denied if an infringing product is obtained as an interim product that will eventually need further processing during which the infringing state once more becomes irretrievably lost. Nonetheless, these are not the current circumstances. The decision in this case is also not comparable to the type of configuration on which the BGH based its decision ‘Air heaters’ (Mid 2001, 21). Unlike there, there can be no mention of the fact that the measuring device should ultimately be introduced into the market according to the intention of the First Respondent with the temporarily mounted front end cap (which eliminates the infringing function). Rather the intent is that the thermometer should be marketed in the (infringing) form that it undertakes by installing the new into. Furthermore the recognised principles are relevant in the manufacture of an unfinished product, the missing part of which is readily available and can be added is just as good as the successive delivery upon agreement of all parts to be assembled (cf. Busse, Patent Law, 5th edition, §9 German Patent Law, margin no. 63; Benkard, Patent Law, 9th edition, §9 German Patent Law, margin no. 11). Even if currently the temperature measuring device of the First Respondent - contrary to the aforementioned statements - should therefore be regarded as ‘unfinished’ because it does not have a front end cap, it cannot be disputed that the first respondent not only designed the measuring device in such a way, but rather it also delivers replacement caps that can be mounted in place of the front end caps it delivered. The First Respondent not only manufactured an ‘unfinished’ product in Germany - in the form of a measuring device without a front end cap - but it also manufactured the end cap, with which the unfinished product can be completed, to form a sellable infringing product. At least this fact in and of itself substantiates the allegation of having manufactured a patent-infringing thermometer in the Federal Republic of Germany. 2. Under the given circumstances, the assumption is further substantiated that the First Respondent offered the patent-infringing thermometers from its principal place of business (and thus in Germany). BGH case precedent (GRUR 1960, 423 – Valve bag with block bottom I) has already decided that a domestic supply offer exists if and when the offer goes so far as to reconstruct a machine abroad (with the vendor) without infringing on the patent in a form that corresponds the patent that can be manufactured domestically by providers in the non-infringing form (also: Benkard, l.c. §9, margin no. 11; Busse l.c. §9 margin no. 133). The underlying case deserves the same event evaluation. That particular measuring device the First Respondent delivers, may not infringe on the patent. The offer from the First Respondent, however, comprises the provision of a replacement front end cap, with which the delivered device can simply be redesigned in an infringing manner. Although the First respondent does not carry out the reconstruction itself, this is without merit from a legal standpoint because the First Respondent instructs its buyers to do so and the front end caps can be replaced with just a few simple moves based on the precautions taken on the measuring device by the First Respondent.”