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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 4/6/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendments to the claims, filed 4/6/2026, are accepted and appreciated by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 4/6/2026 have been fully considered. With regards to the 35 U.S.C.§112(b) Rejection, Applicant’s amendments have addressed these issues and are therefore withdrawn. With regards to the prior art the claims recite new limitations that are addressed below.
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.
Claim(s) 1-4,11-12, 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Edge (US 2014/0135040 A1) in view of Wachter (US 2014/0200846 A1). With respect to Claim 1 Edge teaches A method comprising (See Abstract): determining a cellular element associated with a transmitter of a transmitter network (See Para[0059] At example block 206, mobile device 102 may determine whether it needs to determine its altitude but is unable to do so without making use of reference data report 114. If the output of this determination is yes, then at block 208, mobile device 102 may obtain a measurement of local atmospheric pressure using an environmental sensor (or more than one environmental sensor) provisioned with mobile device 102. As previously mentioned, by way of example, in certain instances an environmental sensor may comprise a barometer, a thermometer, a hygrometer, etc. Mobile device 102 may then also determine its horizontal location either accurately or approximately (e.g. based on a location for its serving cell in the case of an approximate location) and determine whether this location is within any pressure validity area for the reference data report 114); selecting reference data from one or more weather stations, wherein the reference data meets a proximity condition relative to the cellular element (See Para[0023] Existing standard positioning methods for mobile wireless devices such as A-GNSS, OTDOA, AFLT and E-CID typically operate by coupling a location server to a mobile device whose location is needed. The location server may then provide assistance data to the mobile device to direct and enable the mobile device to make appropriate measurements of radio signals from sources such as GNSS satellites (e.g. satellites for the US Global Positioning System (GPS), European Galileo system or Russian GLONASS system) and/or network base stations and access points. The mobile device may subsequently return the measurements to the location server for computation of a location estimate or the mobile device may compute a location estimate itself with the help, in some cases, of more assistance data from the location server. The location server is typically part of or reachable from some serving wireless network or a home wireless network for the mobile device. One example of a location server is a Secure User Plane Location (SUPL) Location Platform (SLP) that has been defined for the SUPL location solution by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). Another example is an Enhanced Serving Mobile Location Center (E-SMLC) that has been defined by an organization known as the 3.sup.rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for locating a mobile device that is accessing a network using the Long Term Evolution (LTE) radio technology. For these location servers and other servers, positioning of a mobile device may take place by first establishing a positioning session between the location server and mobile device and using a positioning protocol to convey assistance data from the location server to the mobile device and to convey measurements or a location estimate from the mobile device to the location server. An example of a positioning protocol applicable to LTE radio access is the LTE Positioning Protocol (LPP) defined in publicly available documents by 3GPP. An example of a positioning protocol applicable to both LTE and other radio technologies is the LPP Extensions (LPPe) protocol defined in publicly available documents from OMA. LPPe is defined to operate in conjunction with LPP such that an LPPe message is normally embedded within an LPP message with the combined message referred to as an LPP/LPPe message and the combined protocol referred to as LPP/LPPe); transmitting the reference value from a transmitter of the transmitter network to a mobile device. (See Para[0059] If these conditions are fulfilled or if reference data report 114 is otherwise considered by mobile device 102 to be unconditionally reliable (e.g. because remote device 110 took into account the location of mobile device 102 and the current time when assembling reference data report 114), then at example block 210, mobile device 102 may use reference data report 114 to determine its altitude based, at least in part, on the measured local atmospheric pressure and a reference atmospheric pressure obtained via reference data report 114. Mobile device 102 may also store the reference data report 114 for later use--e.g. to determine its altitude at some later time.) However Edge is silent to the language of the reference data includes reference pressures with respective weights that are based on proximity of the weather stations to the cellular element, and a first reference pressure from a first weather station has a greater weight than a second reference pressure from a second weather station that is further away from the cellular element than is the first weather station; using the selected reference data to determine a reference value that is a weighted average of the reference pressures based on the respective weights; Nevertheless Wachter teaches the reference data includes reference pressures with respective weights that are based on proximity of the weather stations to the cellular element, and a first reference pressure from a first weather station has a greater weight than a second reference pressure from a second weather station that is further away from the cellular element than is the first weather station; (See Para[0040]) using the selected reference data to determine a reference value that is a weighted average of the reference pressures based on the respective weights (See Para[0040]) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Edge and use weight such as that of Wachter. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to modify Edge, because using weight would produce accurate result and give weight to more important and relevant values.
With respect to Claim 2 Edge teaches The method of claim 1, further comprising: calibrating a barometric pressure sensor of the mobile device using the reference value. (See Fig. 2) With respect to Claim 3 Edge teaches The method of claim 1, further comprising: estimating an altitude of the mobile device using the reference value. (See Para[0006] With respect to Claim 4 Edge The method of claim 1, further comprising: after transmitting the reference value, determining that a broadcast is scheduled at a first time; and (See Fig. 3) in response to the broadcast being scheduled at the first time: (See Fig. 3) selecting new reference data from the one or more weather stations; (See Fig. 3) using the new reference data to determine a new reference value; and (See Fig. 3) transmitting the new reference value from the transmitter to the mobile device or another mobile device. (See Fig. 3) With respect to Claim 11 Edge teaches The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the reference data further comprises: selecting only reference data from each weather station within the cellular element or within a threshold distance from part of the cellular element. (See Fig .1) With respect to Claim 12 Edge teaches The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the reference data further comprises: selecting only reference data from the nearest n weather stations to part of the cellular element. (See Fig. 1) With respect to Claim 19 Edge teaches One or more non-transitory machine-readable media embodying program instructions that, when executed by one or more machines, cause the one or more machines to implement the method of claim 1. (See claim 1 above) With respect to Claim 20 Edge teaches The method of claim 1, wherein the cellular element is a location of the transmitter, a coverage area of the transmitter, a cell sector of the transmitter, or a beam of the transmitter. (See Fig 1)
Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Edge (US 2014/0135040 A1) and Wachter (US 2014/0200846 A1) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Rodriguez (US 2015/0126234 A1).
With respect to Claim 13 Edge is silent to the language of The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the reference data further comprises: in addition to the proximity condition, selecting only reference data with an age that is below a threshold age value, selecting only the n most-recently provided reference data, selecting only reference data with a quality that is above a threshold quality value,or selecting only the n highest-quality reference data. Nevertheless Rodriguez teaches wherein selecting the reference data further comprises: in addition to the proximity condition, selecting only reference data with an age that is below a threshold age value, selecting only the n most-recently provided reference data, selecting only reference data with a quality that is above a threshold quality value,or selecting only the n highest-quality reference data. (See Para[0115]) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Edge wherein in addition to the proximity condition, selecting only the n most-recently provided reference data, such as that of Rodriguez. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to modify Edge, because selecting recent data would improve accuracy.
Claim(s) 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Edge (US 2014/0135040 A1) and Wachter (US 2014/0200846 A1)as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Sendonaris (US 2013/0271324 A1).
With respect to Claim 14 Edge is silent to the language of The method of claim 1, wherein if none of the reference data meet the proximity condition, the method comprises: determining a new cellular element; and selecting second reference data that meet the proximity condition relative to the new cellular element. Nevertheless Sendonaris teaches wherein if none of the reference data meet the proximity condition, the method comprises: determining a new cellular element; and selecting second reference data that meet the proximity condition relative to the new cellular element (See Fig 3). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Edge and determine a new cellular element; and selecting second reference data that meet the proximity condition relative to the new cellular element such as that of Sendonaris. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to modify Edge, because such steps would ensure that accurate data is utilized for accurate results.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-10, 15-18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YOSHIHISA ISHIZUKA whose telephone number is (571)270-7050. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 11:00-7:00.
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YOSHIHISA . ISHIZUKA
Examiner
Art Unit 2857
/YOSHIHISA ISHIZUKA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2857
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