Appeal No. 96-3833
ApplicationApplication 08/014,320
is advantageously self-regulating without the need of a separate
thermostatic control. Such a teaching alone would have been6
ample motivation for one of ordinary skill in the art to
substitute Bronnvall’s PTC heating element for VanSickle’s
thermostatically controlled heating element. Additionally, as
also noted supra, the advantages and disadvantages of a PTC
heater and a heater with a separate thermostatic control, such as
VanSickle’s heater are well known, making the selection of one or
the other for a particular installation a matter of choice or
engineering design. See In re Heinrich, 268 F.2d at 756, 122 USPQ
at 390.
The Waseleski patent expressly teaches the provision of a
self-regulating PTC strip heating element 3 for heating a wiper
blade. This patent, it should be noted, is not relied upon for
teaching a PTC heating element corresponding to the claimed
details of appellant’s PTC heating element. Instead, this
reference is relied upon for its express suggestion of
eliminating the separate thermostatic control in a conventional
thermostatically controlled wiper blade heating element by
6 Since appellant has not expressly stated that the plate-shaped
heating element disclosed in his specification (see page 7 thereof) is prior
art, but only the plate-shaped heating element is “available through
Thermacon, Inc.” (specification, page 7), we have not relied upon the
Thermacon heating element in support of our rejection.
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