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 .
Communications with Applicant
Examiner Barry called Applicant’s representative on June 1, 2026 to confirm that the claims to be reviewed were filed on December 29, 2023 and not the more recently filed claims on September 16, 2024. This office action is prepared in accordance with that conversation.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on September 16, 2024 was filed in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The terms “a user-defined field” and “a custom frame structure” in claims 6 and 22 relative terms which renders the claim indefinite. The terms “a user-defined field” and “a custom frame structure” are not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. Correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-3, 6, 10, 12, 17-19, 22, 27, 29, 31, 32, and 35-37 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Non-patent Literature entitled, “IEEE Std 802.11-2020” (hereinafter “802.11”) in view of U.S. Publication No. 2019/0380054 (hereinafter “Manolakos”).
Regarding claim 1, 802.11 teaches: generating and sending, by one of the at least one access point device, a channel status indication frame indicating a current channel status (p. 891/4379 9.4.1.27 CSI Report field); receiving, by one of the at least one device to be positioned, the channel status indication frame (p. 2921/4379 19.3.12.3.2 CSI matrices feedback p. 2273/4379 Figure 11-35—Example negotiation and measurement exchange sequence, ASAP=0, and FTMs Per Burst = 2); generating, by the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame, a frequency sweep information frame according to the current channel status indicated by the channel status indication frame, the frequency sweep information frame comprising time-frequency domain resource indication information, wherein the time-frequency domain resource indication information specifies one or more time- frequency domain resource blocks (p. 893/4379 9.4.1.28 Noncompressed Beamforming Report field; p. 894/4379 The Compressed Beamforming Report field contains the channel matrix elements indexed, first, by matrix angles in the order shown in Table 9-61 and, second, by data subcarrier index from lowest frequency to highest frequency. The explanation on how these angles are generated from the beamforming feedback matrix V is given in 19.3.12.3.6.); sending, by the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame, the frequency sweep information frame (p. 1846/4379 Figure 10-48—Calibration procedure with sounding PPDU containing an MPDU; p. 1849/4379 10.34.2.4.4 CSI reporting for calibration); receiving, by one or more positioning anchor devices among the plurality of positioning anchor devices, the frequency sweep information frame (p. 1846/4379 Figure 10-48—Calibration procedure with sounding PPDU containing an MPDU; p. 1849/4379 10.34.2.4.4 CSI reporting for calibration); sending, by the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame, one or more positioning frames on one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks specified by the time-frequency domain resource indication information (p. 1848/4379 When the MIMO channel measurements become available at STA B, STA B shall send one or more CSI frames that contain the CSI report (Step 2 in Figure 10-48). This CSI report shall have full precision, i.e, Ng=1 (no grouping) and Nb=3 (8 bits). In these CSI frames, the Calibration Sequence subfields in HT Control fields shall be set to the same value that is indicated in the Calibration Sounding Complete frame. These CSI frames shall have a frame type of Management Action +HTC.); receiving, by one or more positioning anchor devices having received the frequency sweep information frame, the one or more positioning frames on one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks specified by the time-frequency domain resource indication information, and determining, according to the one or more positioning frames, CSI information between each positioning anchor device having received the frequency sweep information frame and the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame (p. 1848/4379 When the MIMO channel measurements become available at STA B, STA B shall send one or more CSI frames that contain the CSI report (Step 2 in Figure 10-48). This CSI report shall have full precision, i.e, Ng=1 (no grouping) and Nb=3 (8 bits). In these CSI frames, the Calibration Sequence subfields in HT Control fields shall be set to the same value that is indicated in the Calibration Sounding Complete frame. These CSI frames shall have a frame type of Management Action +HTC; p. 3112/ 4379 The PHY optionally filters out the PPDU based on the GroupID, MU[0-3] NSTS and Partial AID fields of VHT-SIG-A and the contents of the PHYCONFIG_VECTOR as follows).
802.11 does not explicitly teach: A method for Wi-Fi positioning in a Wi-Fi network comprising a plurality of positioning anchor devices and at least one device to be positioned, wherein the plurality of anchor devices comprise at least one access point device and at least one site device, the method includes: and determining, according to the CSI information, the location of the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep information frame.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Manolakos teaches: A method for Wi-Fi positioning in a Wi-Fi network comprising a plurality of positioning anchor devices (e.g., base stations 102, UE 190; [0032] Of course, other mechanisms of connecting to the core network and/or the Internet are also possible for the UEs, such as over a wired access network, a wireless local area network (WLAN) (e.g., based on IEEE 802.11, etc.) and so on.) and at least one device to be positioned (e.g., UE 104, 190, 152 etc.), wherein the plurality of anchor devices comprise at least one access point device and at least one site device, the method includes: and determining, according to the CSI information, the location of the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep information frame ([0051] By extracting different types of information from the exchanged RF signals, and utilizing the layout of the wireless communications system 400 (i.e., the base stations' 402 locations, geometry, etc.), the UE 404 may determine its position, or assist in the determination of its position, in a predefined reference coordinate system.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify 802.11 to include the feature of location determination and a combination of 802.11 with Manolakos renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing a location determination based on the CSI information).
Regarding claim 2, 802.11 teaches: wherein the plurality of positioning anchor devices further comprise one or more devices to be positioned of which locations have been determined (p. 1533/4379 Table 9-427—Location Parameters Element field for Location Configuration Response frame; Location Status - The Location Status subelement is included in the Location Configuration Response frame. If all configuration of the subelements contained in a Location Configuration Request frame was successful, then a single Location Status subelement is included in the Location Configuration Response frame).
Regarding claim 3, 802.11 teaches: wherein the time-frequency domain resource indication information comprises one of: a plurality of frequency points and time-domain intervals between and within the frequency points (p. 168/4379 physical layer (PHY) protocol data unit (PPDU): The unit of data exchanged between two peer PHY entities to provide the PHY data service.); wherein the time-frequency domain resource indication information further comprises the number of times of retransmission (p. 982/4379 Figure 9-192—Triggered Reporting subelement format for STA Counters); and encoded information of the one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks (p. 2824/4379 Figure 17-10—BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64-QAM constellation bit encoding; p. 168/4379 physical layer (PHY) protocol data unit (PPDU): The unit of data exchanged between two peer PHY entities to provide the PHY data service.).
Regarding claim 6, 802.11 teaches: wherein the time-frequency domain resource indication information is carried in one of: a PHY and/or MAC header field of the frequency sweep information frame (p. 2776/4379 - 16.2.3.4 Long PHY SIGNAL field; p. 2776/4379 16.2.3.5 Long PHY SERVICE field); and one or more of a reserved field (p. 757/4379 NOTE 2—This applies to reserved fields and subfields in MAC headers. Reserved fields and subfields in PHY headers might be set to a nonzero value upon transmission, and might not be ignored upon reception.), a user-defined field, a custom frame structure, and a bit mapping of the frequency sweep information frame (p. 4218/4379 “QAM mapping”).
Regarding claim 10, 802.11 teaches: wherein the plurality of positioning anchor devices and at least one device to be positioned form a tree Wi-Fi Mesh network, wherein the at least one access point device forms a root node and intermediate nodes of the tree Wi-Fi Mesh network (p. 11/4379 - IEEE Std 802.11s™-2011: Mesh Networking (Amendment 10)), and the at least one site device and the at least one device to be positioned form leaf nodes of the tree Wi-Fi Mesh network (p. 257/4379 -The third type of general link is a “leaf-node” type of general link that connects entities in the LLC layer attached to a non-AP GLK STA via a general link and an IEEE 802.1Q bridge attached to the GLK AP to another entity available via the IEEE 802.1Q network attached to the GLK AP. Such a general link could provide a connection between a network printer attached to the LAN and a computer attached to the non-AP GLK STA.); and wherein each of the at least one access point device is an AP device or an SoftAP device (p. 1219/4379 9.4.2.111 RANN element).
Regarding claim 12, 802.11 does not explicitly teach: wherein the one or more positioning anchor devices are configured as one of: being located within a Wi-Fi signal transmission range of the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame; and all positioning anchor devices located within the Wi-Fi signal transmission range of the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame and capable of Wi-Fi communication with the device to be positioned.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Manolakos teaches: wherein the one or more positioning anchor devices are configured as one of: being located within a Wi-Fi signal transmission range of the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame; and all positioning anchor devices located within the Wi-Fi signal transmission range of the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame and capable of Wi-Fi communication with the device to be positioned ([0069] FIG. 6B is a diagram 600B illustrating the separation of clusters in terms of AoD, according to aspects of the disclosure. The RF signal transmitted by the transmitter in AoD range 602a may be received at the receiver as a first cluster (e.g., “Cluster1” in FIG. 6A), and the RF signal transmitted by the transmitter in in AoD range 602b may be received at the receiver as a different cluster (e.g., “Cluster3” in FIG. 6A). Note that although the AoD ranges depicted in FIG. 6B are spatially isolated, the AoD ranges corresponding to some received clusters may also partially overlap, even though the clusters are separated in time. For example, this may arise when two separate buildings at the same AoD from the transmitter reflect the RF signal towards the receiver. [0081] At 716, the second node 703 can select a second set of beams for transmission based on the received report. For example, where the first node 701 is attempting to perform a position estimation and the identified beam(s) are cell synchronization beam(s), the second node 703 can update the beam(s) identified in the report to transmit positioning RF signals, such as PRS or CSI-RS.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify 802.11 to include the feature of receiving a CSI statis indication and a combination of 802.11 with Manolakos renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing a CSI indication for locating a device).
Regarding claim 17, 802.11 teaches: sending, by one of the at least one access point device, a frequency sweep indication frame, wherein the frequency sweep indication frame comprises time-frequency domain resource indication information, the time-frequency domain resource indication information specifies one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks (p. 893/4379 9.4.1.28 Noncompressed Beamforming Report field; p. 894/4379 The Compressed Beamforming Report field contains the channel matrix elements indexed, first, by matrix angles in the order shown in Table 9-61 and, second, by data subcarrier index from lowest frequency to highest frequency. The explanation on how these angles are generated from the beamforming feedback matrix V is given in 19.3.12.3.6.); receiving, by one of the at least one device to be positioned, the frequency sweep indication frame (p. 1846/4379 Figure 10-48—Calibration procedure with sounding PPDU containing an MPDU; p. 1849/4379 10.34.2.4.4 CSI reporting for calibration); receiving, by one or more positioning anchor devices among the plurality of positioning anchor devices, the frequency sweep indication frame (p. 1846/4379 Figure 10-48—Calibration procedure with sounding PPDU containing an MPDU; p. 1849/4379 10.34.2.4.4 CSI reporting for calibration); sending, by the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep indication frame, one or more positioning frames on one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks specified by the time-frequency domain resource indication information (p. 1848/4379 When the MIMO channel measurements become available at STA B, STA B shall send one or more CSI frames that contain the CSI report (Step 2 in Figure 10-48). This CSI report shall have full precision, i.e, Ng=1 (no grouping) and Nb=3 (8 bits). In these CSI frames, the Calibration Sequence subfields in HT Control fields shall be set to the same value that is indicated in the Calibration Sounding Complete frame. These CSI frames shall have a frame type of Management Action +HTC.; p. 3112/ 4379 The PHY optionally filters out the PPDU based on the GroupID, MU[0-3] NSTS and Partial AID fields of VHT-SIG-A and the contents of the PHYCONFIG_VECTOR as follows); receiving, by one or more positioning anchor devices having received the frequency sweep indication frame, the one or more positioning frames on one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks specified by the time-frequency domain resource indication information, and determining, according to the one or more positioning frames, CSI information between each positioning anchor device having received the frequency sweep indication frame and the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep indication frame (p. 1848/4379 When the MIMO channel measurements become available at STA B, STA B shall send one or more CSI frames that contain the CSI report (Step 2 in Figure 10-48). This CSI report shall have full precision, i.e, Ng=1 (no grouping) and Nb=3 (8 bits). In these CSI frames, the Calibration Sequence subfields in HT Control fields shall be set to the same value that is indicated in the Calibration Sounding Complete frame. These CSI frames shall have a frame type of Management Action +HTC.; p. 3112/ 4379 The PHY optionally filters out the PPDU based on the GroupID, MU[0-3] NSTS and Partial AID fields of VHT-SIG-A and the contents of the PHYCONFIG_VECTOR as follows).
802.11 does not explicitly teach: A method for Wi-Fi positioning in a Wi-Fi network comprising a plurality of positioning anchor devices and at least one device to be positioned, wherein the plurality of anchor devices comprise at least one access point device and at least one site device, the method includes: and determining, according to the CSI information, the location of the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep information frame.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Manolakos teaches: A method for Wi-Fi positioning in a Wi-Fi network comprising a plurality of positioning anchor devices (e.g., base stations 102, UE 190; [0032] Of course, other mechanisms of connecting to the core network and/or the Internet are also possible for the UEs, such as over a wired access network, a wireless local area network (WLAN) (e.g., based on IEEE 802.11, etc.) and so on.) and at least one device to be positioned (e.g., UE 104, 190, 152 etc.), wherein the plurality of anchor devices comprise at least one access point device and at least one site device, the method includes: and determining, according to the CSI information, the location of the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep information frame ([0051] By extracting different types of information from the exchanged RF signals, and utilizing the layout of the wireless communications system 400 (i.e., the base stations' 402 locations, geometry, etc.), the UE 404 may determine its position, or assist in the determination of its position, in a predefined reference coordinate system.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify 802.11 to include the feature of location determination and a combination of 802.11 with Manolakos renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing a location determination based on the CSI information).
Regarding claim 18, 802.11 teaches: wherein the plurality of positioning anchor devices further comprise one or more devices to be positioned of which locations have been determined (p. 1533/4379 Table 9-427—Location Parameters Element field for Location Configuration Response frame; Location Status - The Location Status subelement is included in the Location Configuration Response frame. If all configuration of the subelements contained in a Location Configuration Request frame was successful, then a single Location Status subelement is included in the Location Configuration Response frame).
Regarding claim 19, 802.11 teaches: wherein the time-frequency domain resource indication information comprises one of: a plurality of frequency points and time-domain intervals between and within the frequency points (p. 168/4379 physical layer (PHY) protocol data unit (PPDU): The unit of data exchanged between two peer PHY entities to provide the PHY data service.); wherein the time-frequency domain resource indication information further comprises the number of times of retransmission (p. 982/4379 Figure 9-192—Triggered Reporting subelement format for STA Counters); and encoded information of the one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks (p. 2824/4379 Figure 17-10—BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64-QAM constellation bit encoding; p. 168/4379 physical layer (PHY) protocol data unit (PPDU): The unit of data exchanged between two peer PHY entities to provide the PHY data service.).
Regarding claim 22, 802.11 teaches: wherein the time-frequency domain resource indication information is carried in one of: a PHY and/or MAC header field of the frequency sweep information frame (p. 2776/4379 - 16.2.3.4 Long PHY SIGNAL field; p. 2776/4379 16.2.3.5 Long PHY SERVICE field); and one or more of a reserved field (p. 757/4379 NOTE 2—This applies to reserved fields and subfields in MAC headers. Reserved fields and subfields in PHY headers might be set to a nonzero value upon transmission, and might not be ignored upon reception.), a user-defined field, a custom frame structure, and a bit mapping of the frequency sweep information frame (p. 4218/4379 “QAM mapping”).
Regarding claim 27, 802.11 teaches: wherein the plurality of positioning anchor devices and at least one device to be positioned form a tree Wi-Fi Mesh network, wherein the at least one access point device forms a root node and intermediate nodes of the tree Wi-Fi Mesh network (p. 11/4379 - IEEE Std 802.11s™-2011: Mesh Networking (Amendment 10)), and the at least one site device and the at least one device to be positioned form leaf nodes of the tree Wi-Fi Mesh network (p. 257/4379 -The third type of general link is a “leaf-node” type of general link that connects entities in the LLC layer attached to a non-AP GLK STA via a general link and an IEEE 802.1Q bridge attached to the GLK AP to another entity available via the IEEE 802.1Q network attached to the GLK AP. Such a general link could provide a connection between a network printer attached to the LAN and a computer attached to the non-AP GLK STA.); and wherein each of the at least one access point device is an AP device or an SoftAP device (p. 1219/4379 9.4.2.111 RANN element).
Regarding claim 29, 802.11 does not explicitly teach: wherein the one or more positioning anchor devices are configured as one of: being located within a Wi-Fi signal transmission range of the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame; and all positioning anchor devices located within the Wi-Fi signal transmission range of the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame and capable of Wi-Fi communication with the device to be positioned.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Manolakos teaches: wherein the one or more positioning anchor devices are configured as one of: being located within a Wi-Fi signal transmission range of the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame; and all positioning anchor devices located within the Wi-Fi signal transmission range of the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame and capable of Wi-Fi communication with the device to be positioned ([0069] FIG. 6B is a diagram 600B illustrating the separation of clusters in terms of AoD, according to aspects of the disclosure. The RF signal transmitted by the transmitter in AoD range 602a may be received at the receiver as a first cluster (e.g., “Cluster1” in FIG. 6A), and the RF signal transmitted by the transmitter in in AoD range 602b may be received at the receiver as a different cluster (e.g., “Cluster3” in FIG. 6A). Note that although the AoD ranges depicted in FIG. 6B are spatially isolated, the AoD ranges corresponding to some received clusters may also partially overlap, even though the clusters are separated in time. For example, this may arise when two separate buildings at the same AoD from the transmitter reflect the RF signal towards the receiver. [0081] At 716, the second node 703 can select a second set of beams for transmission based on the received report. For example, where the first node 701 is attempting to perform a position estimation and the identified beam(s) are cell synchronization beam(s), the second node 703 can update the beam(s) identified in the report to transmit positioning RF signals, such as PRS or CSI-RS.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify 802.11 to include the feature of receiving a CSI statis indication and a combination of 802.11 with Manolakos renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing a CSI indication for locating a device).
Regarding claim 35, 802.11 teaches: (i) generating and sending, by one of the at least one access point device, a channel status indication frame indicating a current channel status (p. 891/4379 9.4.1.27 CSI Report field); receiving, by one of the at least one device to be positioned, the channel status indication frame (p. 2921/4379 19.3.12.3.2 CSI matrices feedback p. 2273/4379 Figure 11-35—Example negotiation and measurement exchange sequence, ASAP=0, and FTMs Per Burst = 2); generating, by the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame, a frequency sweep information frame according to the current channel status indicated by the channel status indication frame, the frequency sweep information frame comprising time-frequency domain resource indication information, wherein the time-frequency domain resource indication information specifies one or more time- frequency domain resource blocks (p. 893/4379 9.4.1.28 Noncompressed Beamforming Report field; p. 894/4379 The Compressed Beamforming Report field contains the channel matrix elements indexed, first, by matrix angles in the order shown in Table 9-61 and, second, by data subcarrier index from lowest frequency to highest frequency. The explanation on how these angles are generated from the beamforming feedback matrix V is given in 19.3.12.3.6.); sending, by the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame, the frequency sweep information frame (p. 1846/4379 Figure 10-48—Calibration procedure with sounding PPDU containing an MPDU; p. 1849/4379 10.34.2.4.4 CSI reporting for calibration); receiving, by one or more positioning anchor devices among the plurality of positioning anchor devices, the frequency sweep information frame (p. 1846/4379 Figure 10-48—Calibration procedure with sounding PPDU containing an MPDU; p. 1849/4379 10.34.2.4.4 CSI reporting for calibration); sending, by the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame, one or more positioning frames on one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks specified by the time-frequency domain resource indication information (p. 1848/4379 When the MIMO channel measurements become available at STA B, STA B shall send one or more CSI frames that contain the CSI report (Step 2 in Figure 10-48). This CSI report shall have full precision, i.e, Ng=1 (no grouping) and Nb=3 (8 bits). In these CSI frames, the Calibration Sequence subfields in HT Control fields shall be set to the same value that is indicated in the Calibration Sounding Complete frame. These CSI frames shall have a frame type of Management Action +HTC.); receiving, by one or more positioning anchor devices having received the frequency sweep information frame, the one or more positioning frames on one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks specified by the time-frequency domain resource indication information, and determining, according to the one or more positioning frames, CSI information between each positioning anchor device having received the frequency sweep information frame and the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame (p. 1848/4379 When the MIMO channel measurements become available at STA B, STA B shall send one or more CSI frames that contain the CSI report (Step 2 in Figure 10-48). This CSI report shall have full precision, i.e, Ng=1 (no grouping) and Nb=3 (8 bits). In these CSI frames, the Calibration Sequence subfields in HT Control fields shall be set to the same value that is indicated in the Calibration Sounding Complete frame. These CSI frames shall have a frame type of Management Action +HTC; p. 3112/ 4379 The PHY optionally filters out the PPDU based on the GroupID, MU[0-3] NSTS and Partial AID fields of VHT-SIG-A and the contents of the PHYCONFIG_VECTOR as follows); (ii) sending, by one of the at least one access point device, a frequency sweep indication frame, wherein the frequency sweep indication frame comprises time-frequency domain resource indication information, the time-frequency domain resource indication information specifies one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks (p. 893/4379 9.4.1.28 Noncompressed Beamforming Report field; p. 894/4379 The Compressed Beamforming Report field contains the channel matrix elements indexed, first, by matrix angles in the order shown in Table 9-61 and, second, by data subcarrier index from lowest frequency to highest frequency. The explanation on how these angles are generated from the beamforming feedback matrix V is given in 19.3.12.3.6.); receiving, by one of the at least one device to be positioned, the frequency sweep indication frame (p. 1846/4379 Figure 10-48—Calibration procedure with sounding PPDU containing an MPDU; p. 1849/4379 10.34.2.4.4 CSI reporting for calibration); receiving, by one or more positioning anchor devices among the plurality of positioning anchor devices, the frequency sweep indication frame (p. 1846/4379 Figure 10-48—Calibration procedure with sounding PPDU containing an MPDU; p. 1849/4379 10.34.2.4.4 CSI reporting for calibration); sending, by the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep indication frame, one or more positioning frames on one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks specified by the time-frequency domain resource indication information (p. 1848/4379 When the MIMO channel measurements become available at STA B, STA B shall send one or more CSI frames that contain the CSI report (Step 2 in Figure 10-48). This CSI report shall have full precision, i.e, Ng=1 (no grouping) and Nb=3 (8 bits). In these CSI frames, the Calibration Sequence subfields in HT Control fields shall be set to the same value that is indicated in the Calibration Sounding Complete frame. These CSI frames shall have a frame type of Management Action +HTC.; p. 3112/ 4379 The PHY optionally filters out the PPDU based on the GroupID, MU[0-3] NSTS and Partial AID fields of VHT-SIG-A and the contents of the PHYCONFIG_VECTOR as follows); receiving, by one or more positioning anchor devices having received the frequency sweep indication frame, the one or more positioning frames on one or more time-frequency domain resource blocks specified by the time-frequency domain resource indication information, and determining, according to the one or more positioning frames, CSI information between each positioning anchor device having received the frequency sweep indication frame and the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep indication frame (p. 1848/4379 When the MIMO channel measurements become available at STA B, STA B shall send one or more CSI frames that contain the CSI report (Step 2 in Figure 10-48). This CSI report shall have full precision, i.e, Ng=1 (no grouping) and Nb=3 (8 bits). In these CSI frames, the Calibration Sequence subfields in HT Control fields shall be set to the same value that is indicated in the Calibration Sounding Complete frame. These CSI frames shall have a frame type of Management Action +HTC.; p. 3112/ 4379 The PHY optionally filters out the PPDU based on the GroupID, MU[0-3] NSTS and Partial AID fields of VHT-SIG-A and the contents of the PHYCONFIG_VECTOR as follows).
802.11 does not explicitly teach: A method for Wi-Fi positioning in a Wi-Fi network comprising a plurality of positioning anchor devices and at least one device to be positioned, wherein the plurality of anchor devices comprise at least one access point device and at least one site device, the method includes: and determining, according to the CSI information, the location of the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep information frame.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Manolakos teaches: A method for Wi-Fi positioning in a Wi-Fi network comprising a plurality of positioning anchor devices (e.g., base stations 102, UE 190; [0032] Of course, other mechanisms of connecting to the core network and/or the Internet are also possible for the UEs, such as over a wired access network, a wireless local area network (WLAN) (e.g., based on IEEE 802.11, etc.) and so on.) and at least one device to be positioned (e.g., UE 104, 190, 152 etc.), wherein the plurality of anchor devices comprise at least one access point device and at least one site device, the method includes: and determining, according to the CSI information, the location of the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep information frame ([0051] By extracting different types of information from the exchanged RF signals, and utilizing the layout of the wireless communications system 400 (i.e., the base stations' 402 locations, geometry, etc.), the UE 404 may determine its position, or assist in the determination of its position, in a predefined reference coordinate system.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify 802.11 to include the feature of location determination and a combination of 802.11 with Manolakos renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing a location determination based on the CSI information).
Regarding claim 36, 802.11 does not explicitly teach: wherein each of the at least one device to be positioned has lower computational power and lower power consumption than each of the at least one site device.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Manolakos teaches: wherein each of the at least one device to be positioned has lower computational power and lower power consumption than each of the at least one site device ([0033]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify 802.11 to include the feature of different power levels and a combination of 802.11 with Manolakos renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing devices with different power levels).
Regarding claim 37, 802.11 does not explicitly teach: wherein each of the at least one site device and the at least one device to be positioned is a single-antenna device.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Manolakos teaches: wherein each of the at least one site device and the at least one device to be positioned is a single-antenna device ([0035])
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify 802.11 to include the feature of single antenna devices and a combination of 802.11 with Manolakos renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing single antenna devices).
Claims 8 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 802.11 in view of Manolakos and further in view of Non-patent Literature entitled, “IEEE Std 802.11ax‐2021” (hereinafter “AX”).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of 802.11 and Manolakos does not explicitly teach: wherein the positioning frame does not comprise a load; or wherein the positioning frame comprises an HE-LTF field in the PHY header.
However, in the same field of endeavor, AX teaches: wherein the positioning frame does not comprise a load; or wherein the positioning frame comprises an HE-LTF field in the PHY header (p. 526/767- 27.3.6.9 Construction of HE-LTF field; p. 441/767 - NOTE 1—A non-AP STA transmitting an HE MU PPDU sets the TXVECTOR parameter UPLINK_FLAG to 1 if the PPDU is sent to the AP and to 0 if the PPDU is sent to a TDLS STA (see 26.11.2). The HE MU PPDU format enables the non-AP STA to include its AID (i.e., transmitter’s AID if the UPLINK_FLAG is 1 and the receiver’s AID if the UPLINK_FLAG is 0) in the PHY header of the PPDU, and its use is beyond the scope of this standard.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of 802.11 and Manolakos to include the feature of an HE-LTF field in the PHY header and a combination of 802.11 and Manolakos with AX renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing an HE-LTF field in the PHY header).
Regarding claim 24, the combination of 802.11 and Manolakos does not explicitly teach: wherein the positioning frame does not comprise a load; or wherein the positioning frame comprises an HE-LTF field in the PHY header.
However, in the same field of endeavor, AX teaches: wherein the positioning frame does not comprise a load; or wherein the positioning frame comprises an HE-LTF field in the PHY header (p. 526/767- 27.3.6.9 Construction of HE-LTF field; p. 441/767 - NOTE 1—A non-AP STA transmitting an HE MU PPDU sets the TXVECTOR parameter UPLINK_FLAG to 1 if the PPDU is sent to the AP and to 0 if the PPDU is sent to a TDLS STA (see 26.11.2). The HE MU PPDU format enables the non-AP STA to include its AID (i.e., transmitter’s AID if the UPLINK_FLAG is 1 and the receiver’s AID if the UPLINK_FLAG is 0) in the PHY header of the PPDU, and its use is beyond the scope of this standard.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of 802.11 and Manolakos to include the feature of an HE-LTF field in the PHY header and a combination of 802.11 and Manolakos with AX renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing an HE-LTF field in the PHY header).
Claims 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 802.11 in view of Manolakos and further in view of U.S. Publication No. 2020/0245286 (hereinafter “Bilstad”) and further in view of Non-patent Literature entitled, “Precise Power Delay Profiling with Commodity WiFi” (hereinafter “Xie”).
Regarding claim 14, the combination of 802.11 and Manolakos does not teach: wherein the step of determining, according to the one or more positioning frames, CSI information between each positioning anchor device having received the frequency sweep information frame and the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame includes: wherein the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame sends a CTS frame prior to sending the one or more positioning frames; and the step of determining the location of the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep information frame according to the CSI information includes: determining, by each positioning anchor device having received the frequency sweep information frame, according to the CSI information, distances between the positioning anchor devices and the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame, and aqqreqating the distances to one of the at least one access point device or a server located within or outside the Wi-Fi network to determine the location of the device to be positioned.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Bilstad teaches: wherein the step of determining, according to the one or more positioning frames, CSI information between each positioning anchor device having received the frequency sweep information frame and the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame includes: wherein the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame sends a CTS frame prior to ([0084] In a third example at operation 610, a predictive option includes an anchor node (e.g., master node) that begins transmitting at an interval with the aim of transmitting just prior to the wireless arbitrary device. Any frame may be used, but one such option is the IEEE 802.11 Clear-to-send (CTS) frame which is designed with a short duration and has the ability to grant airtime to the wireless arbitrary device.) sending the one or more positioning frames (Step 704); and the step of determining the location of the device to be positioned having received the frequency sweep information frame according to the CSI information includes: determining, by each positioning anchor device having received the frequency sweep information frame, according to the CSI information, distances between the positioning anchor devices and the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame, and aqqreqating the distances to one of the at least one access point device or a server located within or outside the Wi-Fi network to determine the location of the device to be positioned ([0004] Localization based on time difference of arrival (TDoA) technique for multilateration is performed using radio frequency measurements for determining location of wirelessly equipped objects in three dimensional space. RF-based localization may be performed in numerous ways. [0031], [0039]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of 802.11, Manolakos to include the feature of multilateration and a combination of 802.11 and Manolakos with Bilstad renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing an multilateration).
The combination of 802.11, Manolakos, and Bilstad does not explicitly teach: performing, by each positioning anchor device having received the frequency sweep information frame, CSI splicing according to the one or more positioning frames to obtain CSI information between the positioning anchor device and the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Xie teaches: performing, by each positioning anchor device having received the frequency sweep information frame, CSI splicing according to the one or more positioning frames to obtain CSI information between the positioning anchor device and the device to be positioned having received the channel status indication frame (Abstract - In this paper, we present Splicer, a software-based system that derives high resolution power delay profiles by splicing the CSI measurements from multiple WiFi frequency bands. p. 1, col. 2, A power delay profile fully characterizes a multipath channel, and has been recently used in various motion- or location-based applications [9, 17, 27, 28, 35, 37, 38, 46]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of 802.11, Manolakos, and Bilstad to include the feature of CSI splicing for location determination and a combination of 802.11, Manolakos, Bilstad with Xie renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing CSI splicing for location determination).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Publication No. 2023/0062443 (Chakraborty) Radio Mapping Architecture For Applying Machine Learning Techniques To Wireless Radio Access Networks
U.S. Publication No. 2023/0048608 (Ren) Method For Transmitting And Receiving Sidelink Positioning Reference Signal And Terminal
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/JAB/ Examiner, Art Unit 2643
/JINSONG HU/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2643
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