DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priorities and Examiner Remarks
This application is a Continuation of PCT/CN2020/096404 (filed 06/16/2020).
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 11/18/2025 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 3-11, and 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over KHORYAEV et al. (WO 2020146820 A1, hereinafter KHORYAEV, NOTE: corresponding US 20220116089 A1 is being used for rejection citation purposes, in view of Sosnin et al. (US 20190208366 A1, hereinafter Sosnin).
Regarding claim 1, KHORYAEV teaches a method for configuring a resource for a positioning-purpose reference signal, applicable for a terminal, comprising (in general, see fig. 2B in view of fig. 1B and their corresponding paragraphs for “UL PRS Features”; see also fig. 2A in view of fig. 1A for additional relevant information):
receiving resource information of a plurality of positioning-purpose reference signals sent by a network device (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 122 along with at least para. 84-88 and fig. 1B, “…At operation 252, the operational control flow 250 causes the gNB to preconfigure set of UL PRS Resources…”);
wherein the resource information is at least configured to indicate positions of frequency domain resources of the positioning-purpose reference signals transmitted by the terminal (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 123 along with para. 85 and fig. 1B, “…the UE to transmit UL PRS generated using PRS Sequence ID on UL PRS Resources…”);
the frequency domain resources of at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals are at different positions of one positioning frequency layer (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 85-86 along with para.99-100, “…1. Configurable transmission bandwidth and flexible allocation in time-frequency resources; 2. Configurable transmission periodicity and flexible transmission duration (amount of symbols for transmission)...”);
wherein the frequency domain resources of the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals being at different positions of one positioning frequency layer comprises:
starting positions of physical resource blocks (PRBs) of resources for the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals being different (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 85 along with para. 100 and fig. 1B, for a non-limiting example, “…2. Frequency Allocation can indicate a configurable number of REs within symbols 1, 2, 4, 6 within PRB. In some embodiments, it can indicate a frequency shift and/or resource element position(s) inside PRB for each symbol of PRS resource…”);
and
bandwidths of the resources for at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals being different (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 86 along with para. 99 and para. 83, for a non-limiting example, “…1. Time Allocation can indicate a configurable number of consecutive symbols per single PRS resource (e.g. NPRS_SYMB=1, 2, . . . 8, etc.). In some embodiments, a start symbol within slot (e.g. lPRS_START_SYMB=1, 2, . . . 14) and/or start slot nPRS and period of PRS resource transmission TPRS can be indicated…”, note that the number of symbols being used may cause different bandwidth per PRS resource, also note that the start symbol being indicated may cause different point of start).
KHORYAEV differs from the claim, in that, it does not specifically disclose resource configuration.
Sosnin, for example, from the similar field of endeavor, teaches resource configuration (in general, see sections including para. 157-170 of fig. 16-17, in particular, see at least para. 157 and 166, “…a PRS configuration may include one or more of: PRS resource configuration (or reference resource) within a slot…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Sosnin into the method of KHORYAEV for reducing the influence of inaccurate positioning measurement(s) on the resulting calculated UE coordinate.
Regarding claim 3, KHORYAEV in view of Sosnin teaches a spectrum resource of the positioning frequency layer is a licensed spectrum resource or an unlicensed spectrum resource. (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 122 along with para. 100 and 141, the UEs 301 and the RAN nodes 311 communicate data over licensed spectrum and unlicensed spectrum)
Regarding claim 4, KHORYAEV in view of Sosnin teaches
receiving the resource configuration information of the plurality of positioning-purpose reference signals sent by the network device comprises:
receiving resource configuration information of a plurality of positioning reference signals (PRSs) sent by the network device (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 122 along with para. 98-100, for one example, but not limited to, UL PRS resource may be described by parameters);
or
receiving resource configuration information of a plurality of sounding reference signals (SRSs) for positioning sent by the network device.
Regarding claim 5, KHORYAEV in view of Sosnin teaches
determining antenna ports for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 100-101, “…3. Number of antenna ports per PRS resource, for example, 1 or 2;…”),
or antenna panels for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals,
or the antenna ports and the antenna panels for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals;
wherein, the antenna ports for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals are different (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 100-101, “…Number of antenna ports per PRS resource, for example, 1 or 2;…”),
or the antenna panels for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals are different,
or both the antenna ports and the antenna panels for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals are different.
Regarding claim 6, KHORYAEV in view of Sosnin teaches
determining the antenna ports for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals comprises: determining the antenna ports for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals according to indexes of first antenna ports for the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals indicated by the resource configuration information (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 100-101 in view of para. 117, “…Number of antenna ports per PRS resource, for example, 1 or 2;…”, NOTE: antenna ports are indexed by “antenna port IDs”; Sosnin, see at least 159),
or, determining the antenna panels for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals comprises: determining the antenna panels for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals according to indexes of first antenna panels for the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals indicated by the resource configuration information;
or, determining the antenna ports and the antenna panels for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals comprises: determining the antenna ports and the antenna panels for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals according to the indexes of the first antenna ports and the indexes of the first antenna panels for the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals indicated by the resource configuration information.
Therefore, it would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Sosnin into the method of KHORYAEV for reducing the influence of inaccurate positioning measurement(s) on the resulting calculated UE coordinate.
Regarding claim 7, KHORYAEV in view of Sosnin teaches the resource configuration information is further configured to
indicate indexes of first transmission-reception points (TRPs) for the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 53 and 75, e.g. “…Unambiguous identification of TRPs/gNBs with the large set of IDs;…”),
or indicate identifiers of first physical cells for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals,
or indicate the indexes of the first transmission-reception points (TRPs) for the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals and the identifiers of the first physical cells for transmitting the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals.
Regarding claim 8, KHORYAEV in view of Sosnin teaches the resource configuration information comprises quasi co-location (QCL) information, and the QCL information is configured to indicate beam information of the terminal for transmitting each positioning-purpose reference signal in the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals; wherein the QCL information comprises indexes of beam information reference signals and one or more of identifiers of second antenna ports for transmitting the beam information reference signals, identifiers of second antenna panels for transmitting the beam information reference signals, identifiers of second transmission-reception points (TRPs) for transmitting the beam information reference signals, and identifiers of second physical cells for transmitting the beam information reference signals. (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 63 along with para. 73 and 113, “…by more sophisticated PRS resource configuration and support of multiple PRS resources, each associated with unique ID identifying specific transmission point or beam. The beams transmitted from the same geographical point can be marked as quasi collocated—with signaled QCL type…”)
Regarding claim 9, KHORYAEV in view of Sosnin teaches the resource configuration information is further configured to indicate a transmission power corresponding to the index of each first antenna port in a case that the positioning-purpose reference signals are uplink sounding reference signals (SRSs) for positioning. (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 83 and 90, e.g. transmit power allocation)
Regarding claim 10, KHORYAEV in view of Sosnin teaches reporting measurement results of the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals respectively by different measurement reports in response to a demand of reporting the measurement results of the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals to the network device; or reporting measurement results of the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals by one measurement report in response to a demand of reporting the measurement results of the at least two of the positioning-purpose reference signals to the network device. (KHORYAEV, see at least para. 68 and/or 102, e.g. measurements and reporting; Sosnin, para. 159, e.g. measurements reporting)
Therefore, it would have been obvious, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Sosnin into the method of KHORYAEV for reducing the influence of inaccurate positioning measurement(s) on the resulting calculated UE coordinate.
Regarding claim 11, this claim is rejected for the same reasoning as claim 1. To be more specific, although reciting subject matters slightly different, one skilled in the art would have known claim 11 performs reverse (or corresponding) procedures of claim 1. For example, it would be a network device of claim 11 that performs the reverse (or corresponding) receiving from and transmitting to the terminal of claim 1. Hence, the examiner applies the same rejection reasoning as set forth in claim 1.
Regarding claims 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19, in view of claim 11 above, these claims are rejected for the same reasoning as claims 3, 4, 5+6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, respectively.
Regarding claim 20, this claim is rejected for the same reasoning as claim 1 except this claim is in apparatus claim format.
To be more specific, KHORYAEV in view of Sosnin also teaches a same or similar apparatus comprising processor, transceiver, and memory (KHORYAEV, see at least fig. 12), which are well known in the art and commonly used for providing and enabling robust and reliable data communication hardware and software.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 10/20/2025 have been fully considered. Regarding at least one of the independent claims 1, 11, and 20, since applicant's amendment necessitated new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action, previous Office action's rejections are moot. Accordingly, corresponding dependent claims have also been rejected in this Office action.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YEE F LAM whose telephone number is (571)270-7577. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am-5pm.
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/YEE F LAM/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465