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 .
Election/Restrictions
2. Applicant’s election of Group II claims 5-12 for continued examination in the reply filed on 12/15/2026 is acknowledged. Applicant further amended claims 5, 9, withdrawn claims 1-4, and newly added claims 13-20.
Drawings
3. The drawings were received on 11/01/2023. These drawings are considered by examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
5. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in (Fig. 1this 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.
6. Claims 5-7, 11-15,19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Edge et al (US 2023/0319776), hereinafter “Edge“, in view of Hu et al (US 2025/0234329), hereinafter “Hu“.
Regarding claim 5, Edge teaches a wireless transmit / receive unit (WTRU) (Fig. 1 shows UEs) comprising:
memory (par [0009] teaches memory); and
a processor (par [0009] teaches a processor) configured to: establish a sidelink positioning group (Fig. 8) comprising a plurality of anchor WTRUs (par [0163]);
transmit a sidelink positioning reference signal (SL-PRS) to each anchor WTRU comprised in the sidelink positioning group (Fig. 8, par [0069] teaches the sidelink positioning group);
receive a SL-PRS measurement report from each anchor WTRU comprised in the sidelink positioning group (pars [0148], [0153] teach the SL-PRS measurement report), the SL-PRS measurement report based on the SL-PRS transmitted to each anchor WTRU comprised in the sidelink positioning group (pars [0069-0070], [0148] teach the SL-PRS measurement report), wherein the SL-PRS measurement report comprises an indication of one or more of a distance between the WTRU and the respective anchor WTRU or a direction between the WTRU and the respective anchor WTRU (pars [0069-0070], [0148] teach the SL-PRS measurement report); and
Edge does not explicitly teach determine whether to maintain or terminate the sidelink positioning group if an anchor WTRU moves out of the sidelink positing group.
Hu, in the same field of endeavor, teaches determine whether to maintain or terminate the sidelink positioning group if an anchor WTRU moves out of the sidelink positing group (par [0102]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Edge to Hu, in order to provide radio access technology (RAT) coverage and provide a new positioning method that fits new network use cases, such as vehicle-to-everything (V2X), public safety, commercial, industrial internet of things (IIOT), etc. (as suggested by Hu in paragraph [0002]).
Regarding claims 6 and 14, the combination of Edge and Hu teach the WTRU of claims 5, 13, Edge further teaches wherein the processor is configured to: determine whether each anchor WTRU comprised in the sidelink positioning group is suitable for sidelink group-based positioning based on a signal quality of the SL-PRS received from the respective anchor WTRU and the SL-PRS measurement report received from the respective anchor WTRU (pars [0069-0070], [0148]); and determine whether the sidelink positioning group is suitable for sidelink positioning based on whether a number of anchor WTRUs comprised in the sidelink positioning group that are suitable for sidelink positioning exceeds a threshold value (pars [0153] [0157]).
Regarding claims 7 and 15, the combination of Edge and Hu teach the WTRU of claims 6, 14, Edge further teaches wherein the processor is configured to: determine a position of the WTRU using the sidelink positioning group based on the number of anchor WTRUs of the sidelink positioning group that are suitable for sidelink positioning exceeding the threshold value (pars [0153] [0157]).
Regarding claims 11 and 19, the combination of Edge and Hu teach the WTRU of claims 5, 13, Edge further teaches wherein the processor is configured to receive an indication to perform sidelink positioning monitoring (pars [0184] [0210]).
Regarding claims 12 and 20, the combination of Edge and Hu teach the WTRU of claim 5, Edge further teaches wherein the processor is configured to transmit an indication to perform sidelink positioning monitoring to a third WTRU (pars [0184] [0210]).
Regarding to claim 13, Edge teaches a method performed by a wireless transmit / receive unit (WTRU), the method comprising:
establishing a sidelink positioning group comprising a plurality of anchor WTRUs (par [0163]);
transmitting a sidelink positioning reference signal (SL-PRS) to each anchor WTRU comprised in the sidelink positioning group (Fig. 8, par [0069] teaches the sidelink positioning group);
receiving a SL-PRS measurement report from each anchor WTRU comprised in the sidelink positioning group (pars [0148], [0153] teach the SL-PRS measurement report), the SL-PRS measurement report based on the SL-PRS transmitted to each anchor WTRU comprised in the sidelink positioning group (pars [0148], [0153] teach the SL-PRS measurement report), wherein the SL-PRS measurement report comprises an indication of one or more of a distance between the WTRU and the respective anchor WTRU or a direction between the WTRU and the respective anchor WTRU (pars [0148], [0153] teach the SL-PRS measurement report); and
Edge does not explicitly teach determining whether to maintain or terminate the sidelink positioning group if an anchor WTRU moves out of the sidelink positing group.
Hu, in the same field of endeavor, teaches determining whether to maintain or terminate the sidelink positioning group if an anchor WTRU moves out of the sidelink positing group (par [0102]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Edge to Hu, in order to provide radio access technology (RAT) coverage and provide a new positioning method that fits new network use cases, such as vehicle-to-everything (V2X), public safety, commercial, industrial internet of things (IIOT), etc. (as suggested by Hu in paragraph [0002]).
7. Claims 10, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Edge et al (US 2023/0319776), hereinafter “Edge“, in view of Hu et al (US 2025/0234329), hereinafter “Hu“, further in view of Nam et al (US 2023/0091628), hereinafter “Nam”..
Regarding claims 10 and 18, the combination of Edge and Hu teach the WTRU of claim 5, wherein a signal quality of the SL-PRS comprises one or more of a line of sight (LOS) value or a non-line of sight (NLOS) value.
Edge and Hu do not clearly teach wherein a signal quality of the SL-PRS comprises one or more of a line of sight (LOS) value or a non-line of sight (NLOS) value.
Nam in the same field of endeavor teaches wherein a signal quality of the SL-PRS comprises one or more of a line of sight (LOS) value or a non-line of sight (NLOS) value (par [0069] teaches a line of sight (LOS) value or a non-line of sight (NLOS)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Edge and Hu to Nam, in order to improve the measurement apparatuses that support multiplexing sidelink positioning reference signal(s) (PRS)(s) and data in the wireless communications systems (as suggested by Nam in paragraph [0002]).
Allowable Subject Matter
8. Claims 8-9, 16-17 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.
As to claims 8, 16, the prior art of record fails to disclose wherein the processor is configured to: determine that the sidelink positioning group is unsuitable for group based positioning for a number of consecutive periods; and send a group persistently unusable for sidelink positioning (GPUSP) indication to one or more devices as specified in the claim.
Conclusion
9. Any inquiry concerning this communication 9r earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL T VU whose telephone number is (571)272-8131. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:00AM to 6:00PM.
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/MICHAEL T VU/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2641