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 .
Priority
Claims have priority date of parent application 06/23/2021.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 3/4/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 3/4/2026 with respect to claims 1-15 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
Claim Interpretation
Claims 3 recites “A method of determining positioning information by a Location Server (LS), comprising: …. determining the positioning information based at least in part on the configured assistance data” and Claim 11 includes a substantially equivalent limitation.
Examiner’s review of the specification turns only a UE-based positioning implementation that determines position information based on the configured assistance data: [0124] in instances in which UE-based positioning is being performed, the UE may determine the position of the UE based on assistance data that has been configured by the location server based on the one or more environmental characteristics of the environment of the UE.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-11 and 13-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20170272911 A1 Agrawal; Meghna et al. in view of US 20200196298 A1 EDGE; Stephen William et al.
Regarding Claims 1 and 9, Agrawal (Figs. 9, pars. 108) A location server (LS) for determining positioning information (Fig. 9 server 250 par. 108), comprising:
a transceiver; a memory; and one or more processing units communicatively coupled with the transceiver and the memory, the one or more processing units configured to (Fig. 9, 10, server 250, par. 108 “..processors 950, memory 930, storage 960, and (as applicable) communications interface 990 (e.g., wireline or wireless network interface)…”),
and also, A method of determining positioning information by a Location Server (LS) (Fig. 10, pars. 121-124 method 1000), comprising:
receiving, at the LS and from a User Equipment (UE), one or more environmental characteristics determined by the UE, based on wireless local area network (WLAN) sensing (par. 38 “..UE 100 may send CECI, which may include one or more APs/AP clusters visible to UE 100 at a present location, and receive, in response, an estimated location of UE 100…. CECI may comprise information that includes a determination that UE 100 is in a parking lot, …the determination that UE 100 is in a parking lot may be made by ECIPC 154 based on wireless measurements (e.g. GNSS, WLAN. WWAN, and/or WPAN measurements) and/or measurements by sensors on UE 100….”; par 97 “..UE 100 may send raw measurements to server 250. In some embodiments, if assistance information was received in block 705 or 710, UE 100 may perform wireless measurements based, in part, on the received assistance information. . .server 250 may obtain wireless measurements reported by UE 100…” and see Fig. 8 805 ), wherein at least one of the one or more environmental characteristics corresponds at least one type, wherein the at least one type is: a determination of whether the UE is in an enclosed space, dimensions of the enclosed space, a determination of whether the UE is in motion, a density of people or objects around a vehicle associated with the UE, or any combination thereof (Agrawal claim 2: “environmental context associated with a third subset of the one or more subsets of APs based on the speed of the UE and a pattern of movement of the UE, the speed of the UE and the pattern of movement of the UE” thus context sent to server from UE indicates motion; ¶38 ‘a determination that UE 100 is in a parking lot’; and also Fig. 3 305 ‘determine whether outdoors’ ¶68); and
determining positioning information for the UE based at least in part on the one or more environmental characteristics (Par. 37 “..UE 100 may send CECI based on information captured by camera(s) 180, sensors 185 and/or IMU 170 to a location server and/or another network entity and receive, based on the CECI, an estimated location of the UE…; Par. 38 “..Based on the CECI, a network entity may provide coordinates of known parking lots in some radius (e.g. a 100 ft radius) of the SPS determined location to LADC 156. In some embodiments, PDC 152 on UE 100 may combine the received location assistance information with altimeter measurements to determine a floor or parking lot level…”; par. 111 “..e UE may provide wireless measurement to server 250, which may use PDC 954 and data from a Base Station Almanac (BSA) to determine a position of the UE 100 and report the position of the UE to LCS Client 270 and/or to UE 10..”).
Agrawal does not teach transmitting a request from the LS to a User Equipment (UE) for one or more environmental characteristics, wherein the request specifies at least one type of environmental characteristic associated with a physical environment the UE is in, the one ore more environmental characteristics to be determined by the UE; and wherein at least one of the one or more environmental characteristics [received at the LS] corresponds to the at least one type specified in the request.
Edge teaches transmitting a request from the LS to a User Equipment (UE) for one or more environmental characteristics, wherein the request specifies at least one type of environmental characteristic associated with a physical environment the UE is in, the one or more environmental characteristics to be determined by the UE and wherein at least one of the one or more environmental characteristics [received at the LS] corresponds to the at least one type specified in the request (See Edge Fig. 5 Stage 1, 2, and 6, ¶110-112 , ‘SgNB 110-1 may determine, as part of stage 2, “additional measurements” to be obtained by UE 105, which may be reported by UE 105 along with the DL location measurements. As an example, the additional measurements may comprise or include sensor measurements (e.g. measurements of UE 105 change of location, velocity, change of velocity and/or acceleration).’ and 117 ‘SgNB 110-1 sends an RRC request message (e.g. an RRC Positioning Measurement Request) to the target UE 105 to request UL transmission by the target UE 105 of an UL RS (e.g. an UL PRS or UL SRS) to support the UL location measurements selected at stage 2’).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art, to modify the teachings of Agrawal to include the noted teachings of Edge in order to support location services for user equipment (UEs). (Edge ¶2)
Regarding Claims 2 and 10. The method of claim 1, wherein the positioning information comprises a position estimate for the UE (par. 111 “..e UE may provide wireless measurement to server 250, which may use PDC 954 and data from a Base Station Almanac (BSA) to determine a position of the UE 100 and report the position of the UE to LCS Client 270 and/or to UE 10..”).
Regarding Claims 3 and 11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
configuring assistance data based at least in part on the one or more environmental characteristics (par. 39 “..UE 100 may send CECI for a location (e.g. as determined by ECIPC 154) to a network entity. The network entity may aggregate the CECI with SECI for that location and respond with location assistance information comprising the updated SECI…”);
wherein the determined positioning information corresponds to the configured assistance data, and wherein the UE is configured to determine a position of the UE based on the configured assistance data (par 37 “…Position Determination Component 152 (hereinafter PDC 152) may use information derived from sensor and wireless measurements by UE 100 either independently, and/or in conjunction with received location assistance data, which may comprise ECI to determine and/or refine a position estimate for UE 100…”; par 97, par. 111 “.. UE may provide wireless measurement to server 250, which may use PDC 954 and data from a Base Station Almanac (BSA) to determine a position of the UE 100 and report the position of the UE to LCS Client 270 and/or to UE 10..”).
Regarding Claim 5. Agrawal teaches The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more environmental characteristics comprise an indication that the UE is in motion (Agrawal claim 2: “environmental context associated with a third subset of the one or more subsets of APs based on the speed of the UE and a pattern of movement of the UE, the speed of the UE and the pattern of movement of the UE” thus context sent to server from UE indicates motion)
Regarding Claims 6 and 13. The method of claim 5, further comprising determining whether the UE is in motion (Agrawal par. 70 “..UE 100 may determine that it is in vehicle 460 at location X 402 at some time t1, based on the speed of UE 100 as determined based on information obtained using SPS 280 and/or measurements by IMU 170 and/or other sensor(s) 185. For example, UE 100 may determine that it is in a vehicle based on communication with a navigation system and/or AP (e.g. via Bluetooth, or another WPAN system) in vehicle 460. As shown in FIG. 4, vehicle 460 may then enter parking structure 415 or parking lot 417. In some embodiments, when APs 245 visible to UE 100 are determined to be in a vehicle, the location of the APs may be determined to be “in-vehicle” or “mobile” to indicate that the APs 245 associated with the vehicle are mobile…”), wherein the positioning information is based at least in part on the indication that the UE is in motion (Agrwal Claim 2: “.., wherein the sensor measurements comprise Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) measurements; or determining a parking lot environmental context associated with a third subset of the one or more subsets of APs based on the speed of the UE and a pattern of movement of the UE, the speed of the UE and the pattern of movement of the UE being determined based on one or more of: the SPS measurements, or the..”).
Regarding Claims 7 and 14. The combination teaches The method of claim 1, transmitting, to the UE, a first message requesting environmental inference capabilities of the UE using WLAN sensing; receiving, from the UE, a second message that indicates that the UE is capable of performing environmental inference using WLAN sensing (See Edge Fig. 5 Stage 1, 2, and 6, ¶110-112 ‘SgNB 110-1 may obtain the location capabilities of the target UE 105 by sending an RRC request message to the UE 105’ ‘position methods may be determined based on the UE 105 location capabilities obtained at stage 1’); and
in response to receiving the second message , transmitting the request for the one or more environmental characteristics (See Edge Fig. 5 Stage 1, 2, and 6, ¶110-112 ‘ ‘SgNB 110-1 may determine, as part of stage 2, “additional measurements” to be obtained by UE 105, which may be reported by UE 105 along with the DL location measurements. As an example, the additional measurements may comprise or include sensor measurements (e.g. measurements of UE 105 change of location, velocity, change of velocity and/or acceleration).’ and 117 ‘SgNB 110-1 sends an RRC request message (e.g. an RRC Positioning Measurement Request) to the target UE 105 to request UL transmission by the target UE 105 of an UL RS (e.g. an UL PRS or UL SRS) to support the UL location measurements selected at stage 2’)
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art, to modify the combination to include the noted teachings of Edge in order to support location services for user equipments (UEs). (Edge ¶2)
Regarding Claims 8 and 15. The combination teaches wherein the at least one type of environmental characteristic specified in the request is determined based on the second message from the UE that indicates capabilities of the UE (See Edge Fig. 5 Stage 1, 2, and 6, ¶110-112 ‘SgNB 110-1 may obtain the location capabilities of the target UE 105 by sending an RRC request message to the UE 105’ ‘position methods may be determined based on the UE 105 location capabilities obtained at stage 1’, ‘SgNB 110-1 may determine, as part of stage 2, “additional measurements” to be obtained by UE 105, which may be reported by UE 105 along with the DL location measurements. As an example, the additional measurements may comprise or include sensor measurements (e.g. measurements of UE 105 change of location, velocity, change of velocity and/or acceleration).’ and 117 ‘SgNB 110-1 sends an RRC request message (e.g. an RRC Positioning Measurement Request) to the target UE 105 to request UL transmission by the target UE 105 of an UL RS (e.g. an UL PRS or UL SRS) to support the UL location measurements selected at stage 2’)
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art, to modify the combination to include the noted teachings of Edge in order to support location services for user equipments (UEs). (Edge ¶2)
Claim(s) 4 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20170272911 A1 Agrawal; Meghna et al. and 20200196298 A1 EDGE; Stephen William et al.further in view of US 20150219750 A1 XIAO; Dengkun et al.
Regarding Claims 4 and 12. Agrawal teaches The method of claim 3.
Agrawal does not teach further comprising determining that the UE is not within a line of sight of a cellular base station, wherein the configured assistance data is configured based at least in part on the determination that the UE is not within the line of sight of the cellular base station.
Xiao teaches determining that the UE is not within a line of sight of a cellular base station, wherein the configured assistance data is configured based at least in part on the determination that the UE is not within the line of sight of the cellular base station. (Xiao pars. 171-174 “..where OTDOA-ReqTerminalstAssistanceData is the assistance data request signaling sent by the terminal to the positioning server; and nlosIndication represents that the environment in which the terminal is located is NLOS..” where assistance data is configured based on request).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art, to modify the invention of Agrawal to include the noted teachings of Xiao in order to improve the positioning accuracy (Xiao par. 7).
Additional pertinent art
US 20220240118 A1 BAO; Jingchao et al.
[0069] Movement information regarding the UE can be provided in a motion report sent from the UE to the location server, serving TRP, or other UE. The motion report can be sent in response to a request sent to the UE by the location server, serving TRP, or other UE. Additionally or alternatively, the UE may send a motion report periodically/semi-persistently, based on a schedule. According to some embodiments, the UE may additionally or alternatively send a motion report based on a triggering event, such as a change in the UEs motion status.
Conclusion
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/UMAIR AHSAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2647
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