Appeal No. 2004-0890
Application No. 09/754,291 Page 8
would be recognized as being most likely to be of assistance to a
user of a snow plow. For example, in arguing against the
combination with the Carlson snow plow, appellant maintains that
removal of the scraper bar (32) of Carlson, which is secured to
the bottom edge of the plow, would be necessary and contrary to
the teachings of Carlson since Carlson employs that scraper bar
to assist “in cleaning snow from a surface.” However, contrary
to appellant’s viewpoint, it is our opinion that one of ordinary
skill in the art would have recognized at the time of the
invention that the removable scraper bar (32) of Carlson is
precisely the location where a heating element would have been
located. Indeed, the collapsible and storable snow plow of
Carlson or at least the detachable scraper bar thereof is clearly
capable of being stored in a garage or other structure which
reasonably would have been maintained at a temperature greater
than the snow to be cleared. As such, the scraper bar (32) of
Carlson would be embraced by the claimed heating element required
by representative claim 1 since no particular type or structure
for the heating element is specified in that representative
claim. In other words stored heat in such a scraper bar would
result in the scraper bar being a heating element as broadly
claimed. Moreover, in light of the teachings of the secondary
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