DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . This action is in response to the communication filed on 2/27/2024. Claims 1-9, 21-31 are pending.
Examiner Note
The examiner is here to serve, to assist, and to help applicant to the very best of his ability. The Primary Patent Examiner position is a position of serving and it is an honor to externally serve the applicant and attorney and to internally serve junior examiners and supervisors. The goal of the examiner is to work with and assist applicant to move cases along as efficiently as possible.
Applicant is encouraged to call examiner to schedule an interview if applicant has any questions about this action, wants to discuss any possible paths forward, has proposed amendments to the claims to run by the examiner, or for any other issues that applicant would like to discuss.
Examiner can normally be reached at (571) 270-3863 or michael.keller@uspto.gov, Monday-Friday, from about 6 AM - 10 PM EST and if your call is missed examiner will try to return call quickly, thank you.
Priority
This application claims priority of 63/541,225, filed 9/28/2023. The assignee of record is Apple Inc. The listed inventor(s) is/are: Srivastava, Aditya N.; Najarian, Richard; Townsend, Bryan R.
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.
Claim(s) 1-9, 21, 24-26, 28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Elazzouni et al. (US 20240056827 A1, filed 8/10/2022; hereinafter Ela) in view of Gulati et al. (US 20190383925 A1, published 12/19/2019; hereinafter Gul).
For Claim 1, Ela teaches user equipment comprising: a transceiver configured to communicate with a non-terrestrial network (Ela ¶ 0124 UE 115-a may communicate with a non-terrestrial device (e.g., a satellite));
a global navigational satellite system (GNSS) receiver configured to receive signals from a GNSS (Ela ¶ 0125 the UE 115-a may resolve IDC interference for communications with a non-terrestrial device (e.g., in a GNSS signaling scenario) based on the start time parameter, the duration parameter, and the time offset parameter included in the set of interference parameters); and
processing circuitry coupled to the transceiver and the GNSS receiver, the processing circuitry configured to receive a transmission time offset (Ela ¶ 0125 time offset parameter);
receive, at the GNSS receiver, interference (Ela ¶ 0125 the UE 115-a may transmit the assistance information 210 indicating a bit period interference at a non-terrestrial device and indicating the set of interference parameters including at least the start time parameter (e.g., 20 ms/20 ms—Duration, as the interference-free time may be at any time during a period), the duration parameter (e.g., required interference-free time), and the time offset parameter (e.g., 0 ms), a periodicity parameter (e.g., 20 ms), a frame offset parameter (e.g., 0 ms), an interference direction parameter (e.g., indicated as “other” as the GNSS is effected by NR, but not vice versa), a system type parameter (e.g., GNSS), or any combination thereof. The set of interference parameters may correspond to an interference pattern of the bit period interference in the time domain and the frequency domain.); and
communicate using the transceiver … based on the transmission time offset and the interference (Ela ¶ 0125 the UE 115-a may transmit the assistance information… time offset parameter (e.g., 0 ms), a periodicity parameter (e.g., 20 ms), a frame offset parameter (e.g., 0 ms), an interference direction parameter).
Ela does not explicitly use the term “frame boundary.”
However, Gul teaches a frame boundary (Gul ¶ 0123 frame boundary).
Gul and Ela are analogous art because they are both related to GNSS.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the frame boundary alignment techniques of Gul with the system of Ela so that the phase codes added to the FMCW waveforms remain effective (e.g., reduce or mitigate mutual interference between the waveforms) (Gul ¶ 0123).
For Claim 2, Ela-Gul teaches the user equipment of claim 1, wherein the transmission time offset is predetermined (Ela ¶ 0127 teaches the set of operating parameters for communicating in an interference scenario is based on a type of interference and interference pattern which the examiner is interpreting to be equivalent to the claimed “predetermined.”
Examiner notes that clarifications what is meant by “predetermined” like the example in Applicant’s Specification ¶ 0040 may be one possible way to overcome the current rejection, thank you.
If applicant has any follow-up questions applicant encouraged to reach out to examiner at 571 270 3863 or michael.keller@uspto.gov, examiner will be happy to help applicant work to move the case forward and provide any clarifying interpretations or answer any questions- thank you).
For Claim 3, Ela-Gul teaches the user equipment of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to receive the transmission time offset from the non-terrestrial network (Ela ¶ 0125).
For Claim 4, Ela-Gul teaches the user equipment of claim 1, wherein the interference is caused by an additional user equipment (Gul ¶ 0123 the frame boundaries (labeled on vertical lines) are not aligned for users i and j, possibly resulting in interference between the waveforms).
For Claim 5, Ela-Gul teaches the user equipment of claim 4, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to receive the transmission time offset from the additional user equipment via a terrestrial network (Gul ¶ 0126, Fig. 10 1050).
For Claim 6, Ela-Gul teaches the user equipment of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to receive the transmission time offset via a sidelink (Gul ¶ 0082 sidelink).
For Claim 7, Ela-Gul teaches the user equipment of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine a time that the interference occurs (Ela ¶ 0125 start time, duration, and interference-free time).
For Claim 8, Ela-Gul teaches the user equipment of claim 7, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to determine the frame boundary based on the transmission time offset and the time that the interference occurs (Gul ¶ 0122-0123).
For Claim 9, Ela-Gul teaches the user equipment of claim 8, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to hypothesize a next frame boundary based on comparing one or more previously hypothesized frame boundaries to the frame boundary (Gul ¶ 0122 UEs 120 may synchronize the waveforms by adding common timing shared by the UEs. Gul’s synchronization is interpreted to be equivalent to claimed hypothesized frame boundaries.
Examiner notes that clarifications to how the frame boundary hypothesis is determined, such as in Applicant’s Drawings Fig. 6, may be one possible way to overcome the current rejection, thank you.).
For Claim 21, Ela-Gul teaches the user equipment of claim 1, comprising a GNSS front end having one or more analog-to-digital converters and an interference/clip detector (Examiner notes the claim require one of an ADC or an interference detector or a clip detector.
Please see at least Ela ¶ 0124 as well as other relevant paragraphs and the Gul reference as well, thank you).
For Claim(s) 24 & 28, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 1 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 25, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 7 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 26, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 8 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
Claim(s) 22-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ela-Gul as applied to claim 21 above, and further in view of Filarsky et al. (US 20200371250 A1, published 11/26/2020; hereinafter Fil).
For Claim 22, Ela-Gul teaches the user equipment of claim 21, Ela-Gul does not explicitly teach comprising a satellite software-defined radio (SDR) modem front end, the GNSS front end configured to operate in a first clock domain, and the satellite SDR modem front end configured to operate in a second clock domain.
However, Fil teaches comprising a satellite software-defined radio (SDR) modem front end, the GNSS front end configured to operate in a first clock domain, and the satellite SDR modem front end configured to operate in a second clock domain (Fil ¶ 0011 A software defined radio (SDR) converts the digital time domain GNSS signals from baseband to an RF carrier (e.g., 1.5 GHz)).
Fil and Ela-Gul are analogous art because they are both related to GNSS.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the SDR techniques of Fil with the system of Ela-Gul to generate the time domain GNSS and apply the antenna patterns to those signals (Fil ¶ 0011).
For Claim 23, Ela-Gul-Fil teaches the user equipment of claim 22, wherein the processing circuitry is configured to convert between the first clock domain and the second clock domain (Fil ¶ 0011).
For Claim 29, Ela-Gul teaches the one or more tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable media of claim 28, Ela-Gul does not explicitly teach wherein the instructions are configured to cause the processing circuitry to receive a time of the interference in a first clock domain.
However, Fil teaches wherein the instructions are configured to cause the processing circuitry to receive a time of the interference in a first clock domain (Fil ¶ 0011 A software defined radio (SDR) converts the digital time domain GNSS signals from baseband to an RF carrier (e.g., 1.5 GHz)).
Fil and Ela-Gul are analogous art because they are both related to GNSS.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the SDR techniques of Fil with the system of Ela-Gul to generate the time domain GNSS and apply the antenna patterns to those signals (Fil ¶ 0011).
For Claim 30, Ela-Gul-Fil teaches the one or more tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable media of claim 29, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the processing circuitry to convert the time of the interference to a second clock domain (Fil ¶ 0011).
Claim(s) 27 & 31 s/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ela-Gul as applied to claim 24 above, and further in view of Huang et al. (US 20110163915 A1, published 6/7/2011; hereinafter Hua).
For Claim 27, Ela-Gul teaches the method of claim 24, Ela-Gul does not explicitly teach wherein the transmission time offset comprises a duration of time after a beginning of a frame cycle that the interference is received by the GNSS receiver.
However, Hua teaches wherein the transmission time offset comprises a duration of time after a beginning of a frame cycle that the interference is received by the GNSS receiver (Hua Claim 6 calculating the second GNSS time by the following equation: C2=C1+(FN2-FN1)*T.sub.Frame*(1-D.sub.Frame); wherein C1 represents the first GNSS time, C2 represents the second GNSS time, the T.sub.Frame represents a length of a frame cycle of the frame time clock, and the D.sub.Frame represents a frame time clock drift of the frame time clock).
Hua and Ela-Gul are analogous art because they are both related to GNSS.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the frame cycle techniques of Hua with the system of Ela-Gul for obtaining GNSS time in a GNSS receiver (Hua ¶ 0002).
For Claim 31, Ela-Gul teaches the one or more tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable media of claim 30, Ela-Gul does not explicitly teach wherein the instructions are configured to cause the processing circuitry to determine the frame boundary based on the time of the interference as converted to the second clock domain.
However, Hua teaches wherein the instructions are configured to cause the processing circuitry to determine the frame boundary based on the time of the interference as converted to the second clock domain (Hua Claim 6).
Hua and Ela-Gul are analogous art because they are both related to GNSS.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the frame cycle techniques of Hua with the system of Ela-Gul for obtaining GNSS time in a GNSS receiver (Hua ¶ 0002).
Citation of Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is listed below, thank you:
i. US 20150163747 A1
Please see PTO-892 for additional listing of relevant prior art made of record but not relied upon, thank you.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael Keller at (571)270-3863 or michael.keller@uspto.gov. If attempts to reach the examiner are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian Gillis can be reached on 571-272-7952.
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/MICHAEL A KELLER/
Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2446
Prosecution Insights