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 .
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 10, 19, and 28, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao et al. (US 2023/0283424 A1) with priority to provisional applications 63/185,432 dated 05/07/2021, in view of InterDigital Inc. “Discussion on End-to-End Latency Reduction for DL/UL Positioning”, R2-2008886, Dated November 2020.
Regarding claims 1, 10, 19, and 28, Rao discloses:
a user equipment (UE) (fig.1b depicts a user equipment), comprising:
a memory, which is a non-transitory computer readable medium (fig.1b depicts a memory);
at least one transceiver (fig.1b depicts a transceiver); and
at least one processor (fig.1b depicts a processor) communicatively coupled to the memory (fig.1b depicts a processor) and the at least one transceiver, the at least one processor (fig.1b depicts the processor communicatively coupled via bus to the plurality of different modules in the UE) configured to:
a method of wireless communciation (fig.1a depicts a wireless communications network) performed by a user equipment (UE) (fig.1a depicts the UE communicatively coupled with a base station), the method comprising:
receiving first information identifying a plurality of positioning reference signal (PRS) resources(fig.3 depicts a NR-DL-PRSResourceSet-R16 which comprises a resourceSetID which corresponds to a resource list, which is a plurality of resources of the resource set, signaled via higher layer signaling from a network entity);
receiving second information identifying a plurality of PRS measurement occasions in a time domain (par.[0137] describes the reception of a PRS measurement gap configuration, which includes the periodicity of the measurement gap and length of the measurement gap);
receiving third information identifying a plurality of sounding reference signals (SRSs) and their respective transmission occasions in the time domain (par.[0075] which describes the resources associated with the SRS for positioning (SRSp), signaled via RRC, fig.2, also, par.[0137] as discussed above as it pertains to the measurement gap).
While the disclosure of Rao teaches prioritizing a PRS or SRS, it does not disclose:
receiving fourth information, identifying for each of the plurality or SRSs, one or more PRS resources as reference signals for the respective SRS; and
processing the PRS resources according to a prioritization scheme such that PRS resources that are reference signals for the respective SRS are prioritized over PRS resources that are not reference signals for the respective SRS.
In an analogous art, the disclosure of Interdigital teaches:
receiving fourth information, identifying for each of the plurality or SRSs, one or more PRS resources as reference signals for the respective SRS (pg.6 proposal 3 “provisioning of PRS and SRSp, coordinated triggering of SRSp transmission and PRS reception” That is, the PRS which is a DL-RS comprises resources which are used to transmit the PRS acts as a reference signal because the PRS resource triggers corresponding SRS transmission after the reception of the PRS sent on the PRS resource); and
processing the PRS resources according to a prioritization scheme such that PRS resources that are reference signals for the respective SRS are prioritized over PRS resources that are not reference signals for the respective SRS (pg.4 section 2.2 which discloses a high priority can be assigned for PRS/SRSp with a position service with low latency requirements. That is, the PRS resources associated with the PRS corresponding to the SRSp are given higher priority for low-latency measurements).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the instant application to combine the teachings of Rao for configuring DL/UL reference signal resources with the prioritization of specific reference signal resources as discussed in InterDigital. The motivation/suggestion would have been to assist low-latency communications by assigning a higher priority to resources associated with low-latency communications.
Claim(s) 1-3, 10-12, 19-21, and 28-30, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao et al. (US 2023/0283424 A1) with priority to provisional applications 63/185,432 dated 05/07/2021, in view of Lee et al. (US 2023/0269696 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 10, 19, and 28, Rao discloses:
a user equipment (UE) (fig.1b depicts a user equipment), comprising:
a memory, which is a non-transitory computer readable medium (fig.1b depicts a memory);
at least one transceiver (fig.1b depicts a transceiver); and
at least one processor (fig.1b depicts a processor) communicatively coupled to the memory (fig.1b depicts a processor) and the at least one transceiver, the at least one processor (fig.1b depicts the processor communicatively coupled via bus to the plurality of different modules in the UE) configured to:
a method of wireless communciation (fig.1a depicts a wireless communications network) performed by a user equipment (UE) (fig.1a depicts the UE communicatively coupled with a base station), the method comprising:
receiving first information identifying a plurality of positioning reference signal (PRS) resources(fig.3 depicts a NR-DL-PRSResourceSet-R16 which comprises a resourceSetID which corresponds to a resource list, which is a plurality of resources of the resource set, signaled via higher layer signaling from a network entity);
receiving second information identifying a plurality of PRS measurement occasions in a time domain (par.[0137] describes the reception of a PRS measurement gap configuration, which includes the periodicity of the measurement gap and length of the measurement gap);
receiving third information identifying a plurality of sounding reference signals (SRSs) and their respective transmission occasions in the time domain (par.[0075] which describes the resources associated with the SRS for positioning (SRSp), signaled via RRC, fig.2, also, par.[0137] as discussed above as it pertains to the measurement gap).
While the disclosure of Rao teaches prioritizing a PRS or SRS, it does not disclose:
receiving fourth information, identifying for each of the plurality or SRSs, one or more PRS resources as reference signals for the respective SRS; and
processing the PRS resources according to a prioritization scheme such that PRS resources that are reference signals for the respective SRS are prioritized over PRS resources that are not reference signals for the respective SRS.
In an analogous art, the disclosure of Lee teaches:
receiving fourth information, identifying for each of the plurality or SRSs, one or more PRS resources as reference signals for the respective SRS (par.[0346] describes particular DL PRS resources or resources sets, which are configured to act as pathloss reference for UL RS such as SRSp, wherein the UE is configured with the DL PRS); and
processing the PRS resources according to a prioritization scheme such that PRS resources that are reference signals for the respective SRS are prioritized over PRS resources that are not reference signals for the respective SRS (par.[0346] describes the priority of specific DL PRS resources or resource set being assigned a priority, and the UE using the priority for measurement processing and transmitting the SRS).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the instant application to combine the teachings of Rao for configuring DL/UL reference signal resources with the prioritization of specific reference signal resources as discussed in Lee. The motivation/suggestion would have been to assist the with the uplink transmission of the SRS by using the pathloss reference to distinguish an uplink transmission power of the SRS.
Regarding claims 2, 11, 20, and 29, InterDigital Discloses:
wherein processing PRS resources according to the prioritization scheme comprises processing of PRS resources such that, in a PRS measurement occasion prior to and closest in time to transmission of an SRS, PRS resources that are reference signals for the respective SRS are prioritized over PRS resources that are not reference signals for the respective SRS (par.[0346] describes the PRS which are associated as a pathloss reference to an SRS are given high priority, thus, the PRS would be given higher priority than other PRS resources).
Regarding claims 3, 12, 21, and 30, Lee discloses:
wherein the one or more PRS resources as reference signals for the respective SRS comprise a PRS resource used as a pathloss reference, a PRS resource used as a spatial relations reference, or a PRS resource used as both a pathloss reference and a spatial relations reference (par.[0346] describes the PRS resource being used as a pathloss reference).
Claim(s) 4-9, 13-18, 22-27, and 31-36, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rao et al. (US 2023/0283424 A1) with priority to provisional applications 63/185,432 dated 05/07/2021, in view of Lee et al. (US 2023/0269696 A1), and further in view of Khoryaev et al. (US 2022/0159415 A1).
Regarding claims 4, 13, 22, and 31, the disclosure of Rao and Lee discloses the independent claims, but do not disclose:
at each PRS measurement occasion, the UE processes a subset less than all of the plurality of PRS resources.
In an analogous art, the disclosure of Khoryaev teaches:
at each PRS measurement occasion, the UE processes a subset less than all of the plurality of PRS resources (par.[0025] wherein the UE is configured to select M resources out of the max value of resources, such that the UE is configured to transmit a subset of the resources in certain instances).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the instant application to combine the disclosures Rao and Lee for providing positioning measurements, with the disclosure of Khoryaev for providing a selection of the amount of resources in a resource set that should be selected for reporting. The motivation/suggestion would have been that priority could be given to specific resources over other resources in the set that need to be measured.
Regarding claims 5, 14, 23, and 32, the disclosure of Khoryaev teaches:
wherein the UE processes a same subset of PRS resources at each PRS measurement occasion (par.[0025] the UE can be given an M amount of resources for every measurement, wherein M can be less than or equal to the maximum amount of resources in a set. Using this rule a UE could be configured to measure M <= RSETmax amount of resources to measure in each indicated measurement occasions wherein M could represent a subset when M < RSETmax for the indicated occasions).
Regarding claims 6, 15, 24, and 33, the disclosure of Khoryaev teaches:
wherein the UE processes a different subset of the PRS resources at each PRS measurement occasion (as discussed above with reference to par.[0025] M <= RSETmax and recites, in part, “The UE is configured to select M resource for measurements and provide a report within DL PRS resource set, where M is configured for each PRS resource set”. That is, the M can be modified based on UE selection for each resource set, wherein the selection comprises the same and/or different resources during each selection).
Regarding claims 7, 16, 25, and 34, the disclosure of Khoryaev teaches:
wherein the UE processes all of the one or more PRS resources over multiple PRS measurement occasions (par.[0025] wherein M = RSETmax thus the UE could be configured to transmit RSETmax for each resource set over multiple measurements).
Regarding claims 8, 17, 26, and 35, the disclosure of Khoryaev teaches:
wherein the UE processes a subset less than all of the one or more PRS resources over multiple PRS measurement occasions (par.[0025] wherein the M could indicate a subset of RSETmax to measure for each resource set for each measurement occasion).
Regarding claims 9, 18, 27, and 36, the disclosure of Lee teaches:
wherein processing PRS resources according to the prioritization scheme comprises processing of PRS resources such that, for each transmission of an SRS, at least one PRS resource that is the reference signal for the respective SRS is processed in a PRS measurement occasion prior to and closest in time to a time of transmission of the respective SRS (par.[0346] when the PRS acts as a pathloss reference for SRS, the SRS uses the pathloss estimate to perform uplink SRS transmission, thus, the priority associated with the PRS resources, are closest in time with SRS transmission).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Manolakos et al. (US 2020/0382978 A1) “Maximum Number of Path Loss or Uplink Spatial Transmit Beam Reference Signal for Downlink or Uplink Positioning Reference Signals”
Lee et al. (US 2018/0007576 A1) “Method for Receiving Reference Signal in Wireless Communication System, and Apparatus for the Method”
Kazmi et al. (US 2023/0180173 A1) “User Equipment Positioning Measurement Procedures Under Active Bandwidth Part Switching, Corresponding Devices and Non-Transitory Computer Readable Storage Medium”
Wang et al. (US 2024/0031091 A1) “Provisioning Method, Network Side Device and Non-Transitory Readable Storage Medium”
Bhamri et al. (US 2023/0176162 A1) “Generating a Measurement Report from Positioning Reference Signals”
Wang et al. (US 2023/0336308 A1) “Uplink Positioning Processing Method and Related Device”
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JAMAAL HENSON
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2411
/JAMAAL HENSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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