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 .
Preliminary Amendment
The present Office Action is based upon the original patent application filed on 02/05/2024 as modified by the preliminary amendment filed on 02/05/2024. Claims 1-30 are now pending in the present application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements submitted on 02/05/2024 and 07/07/2025 have been considered by the Examiner and made of record in the application file.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 1-4, 8-9, 11-12, 14-19, 23-24 and 26-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Applicant provided NPL document Masood et al. (Surveying pervasive public safety communication technologies in the context of terrorist attacks, April 29, 2020, hereinafter Masood), in view of Oh et al. (US 2013/0242847 A1, hereinafter Oh).
Regarding Claim 1, Masood disclose, an apparatus for wireless communication at a user equipment (UE) (see e.g., Figs. 6-7, User Equipment, and/or “The UE contains WiFi and/or LTE modules, able to provide 020 connectivity (Fig. 7 )”., section 2.2, items 2, 3) comprising:
a memory (see e.g., Figs. 6-7, User Equipment and/or UE with inherent memory); and
at least one processor coupled to the memory (see e.g., Figs. 6-7, User Equipment and/or UE with inherent processor and memory) and configured to:
identify a first set of preserved resources of one or more sets of preserved resources (see e.g., “messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs”, section 3.3.2 and/or “the band of PRBs is distributed into Nsb sub-bands in the frequency domain”, section 3.3.2); and
transmit, to an aircraft-borne device (see e.g., “The UE contains WiFi and/or LTE modules, able to provide D2D connectivity (Fig. 7 ). The D2D link can be established with the UAV…”, section 2.2, page 7, items 2 and 3) and over at least part of the first set of preserved resources, a synchronization signal (see e.g., “All control messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs. The out-of-coverage UEs randomly choose PRB pairs from the PSCCH resource pool”, section 3.3.2, and/or “out-of-coverage scenario, the discovery is made by the devices themselves through known synchronization or reference signal sequences”, section 3.1.1 and/or “use of UAVs as relays and provides direct discovery and QoS-aware communications between public safety UEs from different organizations.”, section 3.1.1 page 11) and a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message and being transmitted via one of a first physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), a first physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) (see e.g., “PRBs of PSSCH are periodically repeated after the PSCCH in the time domain. In PSSCH, the band of PRBs is distributed…”, section 3.3.2 , item PSSCH) or a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH) (see e.g., “All control messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs. The out-of-coverage UEs randomly choose PRB pairs from the PSCCH…”, section 3.3.2, item PSCCH).
Although Masood teaches a UE in communication with a UAV (i.e., aircraft-borne device using PRBs to transmit synchronization signals in PSCCH and PSSCH resources pool, however, Masood fails to explicitly disclose a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message .
In the same field of endeavor, Oh discloses, transmitted a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message (see e.g., “…indicates a payload type of the IP datagram for transmitting an emergency alert message. The payload_type_indicator field may be able to indicate a case that the payload of the IP datagram includes a separate syntax including the information of the emergency alert message…”, [0281] and/or “the payload of the IP datagram includes the emergency alert message file itself, the payload of the IP datagram may be able to include a text and/or a compressed emergency alert message file(s)”, [0284] and/or “The synchronization multiplexer 116 inserts a field synchronization signal and a segment synchronization signal into the output data of the modified trellis encoder 115 and multiplexes the data”, [0086]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 2, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the synchronization signal comprises a preamble or a demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) (see Masood e.g., “After becoming a SyncRef, it sends sidelink synchronization signals (SLSS) periodically for sharing its synchronization info... An SLSS signal is further categorized into four elements as the primary sidelink synchronization signal (PSSS)…the demodulation reference signals (DMRS)…The DMRSs have the information of the receiving UE for channel approximation…”, sec. 3.3.3, Synchronization).preamble or
Regarding Claim 3, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein at least one of the synchronization signal or at least first payload message is repeated one or more times based at least in part on transmission capability associated with the UE (see Masood e.g., “PRBs of PSSCH are periodically repeated after the PSCCH in the time domain.”, sec. 3.3.2, item PSSCH, and/or “All control messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs”, sec. 3.3.2, item PSCCH).
Regarding Claim 4, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the first set of preserved resource is associated with a time domain starting point, a time domain duration, an a frequency domain resource allocation (see Masood e.g., “choose PRB pairs from the PSCCH resource pool defined by the following pair of parameters: the number of subframes from the time domain, and that of PRBs from the frequency domain…The transmission period is a ratio of the PSCCH to the PSSCH, so by decreasing the duration of the PSSCH”, sec. 3.3.2, item PSCCH, and/or “PRBs of PSSCH are periodically repeated after the PSCCH in the time domain. In PSSCH. the band of PRBs is distributed into Nsb sub-bands in the frequency domain, whereas the set of subframes is divided into multiple time resource patterns (TRPs) on the time domain and each TRPs”, sec. 3.3.2, item PSSCH).
Regarding Claim 8, Masood and Oh combined discloses, transmit, to the aircraft-borne device and over at least part of the first set of preserved resource, a second payload message via one of a second PUSCH or a second PSSCH (see Oh e.g., “the payload of the IP datagram includes the emergency alert message file itself, the payload of the IP datagram may be able to include a text and/or a compressed emergency alert message file(s)”, [0284] and/or “The number of repeatedly receiving the mobile emergency alert table may vary according to significance of the emergency alert message. The emergency alert message of highest significance can be repeated on every MH frame.”, [0104]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 9, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the first payload message includes an indication of at least one of a second modulation and coding scheme (MCS) (see Oh e.g., “The content_coding field indicates an encoding scheme of an emergency alert message. The content_coding field may be able to indicate a case that the emergency alert message is a plane text or a case that the emergency alert message is compressed by gzip, according to a value of this field.”, [0244]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 11, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the second payload message includes a second emergency message (see Oh e.g., “The number of repeatedly receiving the mobile emergency alert table may vary according to significance of the emergency alert message. The emergency alert message of highest significance can be repeated on every MH frame.”, [0104] and/or “the payload of the IP datagram includes the emergency alert message file itself, the payload of the IP datagram may be able to include a text and/or a compressed emergency alert message file(s)”, [0284]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 12, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the first emergency message is associated with a priority (see Oh e.g., “A descriptor for signaling an emergency alert service according to one embodiment of the present invention may include a descriptor_tag field, a descriptor_length field, a priority_level field…”, [0257] and/or “The number of repeatedly receiving the mobile emergency alert table may vary according to significance of the emergency alert message. The emergency alert message of highest significance can be repeated on every MH frame.”, [0104] and/or “the payload of the IP datagram includes the emergency alert message file itself, the payload of the IP datagram may be able to include a text and/or a compressed emergency alert message file(s)”, [0284]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085])).
Regarding Claim 14, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the first emergency message comprises at least one of longitude and latitude coordinates, a time stamp, an identifier of the UE, a personal identifier, an emergency type, or an emergency level (see Oh e.g., “A descriptor for signaling an emergency alert service according to one embodiment of the present invention may include a descriptor_tag field, a descriptor_length field, a priority_level field, an EAS_message_sent_type field, an IP_address field, an UDP_port_num field, and/or a service_related_nrt_service_id field”, [0257] and/or “The descriptor_tag field indicates that a corresponding descriptor is a descriptor for a disaster alert service.”, [0258] and/or “The priority_level field indicates the extent of significance of an emergency alert message. The priority_level field may be able to indicate a case that the emergency alert message is a message to be processed preferentially…”, [0260]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 15, Masood disclose, a method of wireless communication at a user equipment (UE) (see e.g., Figs. 6-7, User Equipment, and/or “The UE contains WiFi and/or LTE modules, able to provide 020 connectivity (Fig. 7 )”., section 2.2, items 2, 3) comprising:
identifying a first set of preserved resources of one or more sets of preserved resources (see e.g., “messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs”, section 3.3.2 and/or “the band of PRBs is distributed into Nsb sub-bands in the frequency domain”, section 3.3.2); and
transmitting, to an aircraft-borne device (see e.g., “The UE contains WiFi and/or LTE modules, able to provide D2D connectivity (Fig. 7 ). The D2D link can be established with the UAV…”, section 2.2, page 7, items 2 and 3) and over at least part of the first set of preserved resources, a synchronization signal (see e.g., “All control messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs. The out-of-coverage UEs randomly choose PRB pairs from the PSCCH resource pool”, section 3.3.2, and/or “out-of-coverage scenario, the discovery is made by the devices themselves through known synchronization or reference signal sequences”, section 3.1.1 and/or “use of UAVs as relays and provides direct discovery and QoS-aware communications between public safety UEs from different organizations.”, section 3.1.1 page 11) and a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message and being transmitted via one of a first physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), a first physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) (see e.g., “PRBs of PSSCH are periodically repeated after the PSCCH in the time domain. In PSSCH, the band of PRBs is distributed…”, section 3.3.2 , item PSSCH) or a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH) (see e.g., “All control messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs. The out-of-coverage UEs randomly choose PRB pairs from the PSCCH…”, section 3.3.2, item PSCCH).
Although Masood teaches a UE in communication with a UAV (i.e., aircraft-borne device using PRBs to transmit synchronization signals in PSCCH and PSSCH resources pool, however, Masood fails to explicitly disclose a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message .
In the same field of endeavor, Oh discloses, transmitted a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message (see e.g., “…indicates a payload type of the IP datagram for transmitting an emergency alert message. The payload_type_indicator field may be able to indicate a case that the payload of the IP datagram includes a separate syntax including the information of the emergency alert message…”, [0281] and/or “the payload of the IP datagram includes the emergency alert message file itself, the payload of the IP datagram may be able to include a text and/or a compressed emergency alert message file(s)”, [0284] and/or “The synchronization multiplexer 116 inserts a field synchronization signal and a segment synchronization signal into the output data of the modified trellis encoder 115 and multiplexes the data”, [0086]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 16, Masood disclose, an apparatus for wireless communication at an aircraft-borne device (see e.g., Fig. 6, Drone Platform, “UAV is shown in Fig. 6”, sec. 2.2.2) comprising:
a memory (see e.g., Fig. 6, Drone Platform, and/or “the main processing unit on which the algorithms developed in the project will be deployed and interact with drone flight controls”, sec. 2.2.2, with inherent memory); and
at least one processor coupled to the memory (see e.g., Figs. 6, “the main processing unit on which the algorithms developed in the project will be deployed and interact with drone flight controls”, sec. 2.2.2) and configured to:
identify a first set of preserved resources of one or more sets of preserved resources (see e.g., “messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs”, section 3.3.2 and/or “the band of PRBs is distributed into Nsb sub-bands in the frequency domain”, section 3.3.2); and
receive, from a user equipment (UE) (see e.g., “The UE contains WiFi and/or LTE modules, able to provide D2D connectivity (Fig. 7 ). The D2D link can be established with the UAV…”, section 2.2, page 7, items 2 and 3) and over at least part of the first set of preserved resources, a synchronization signal (see e.g., “All control messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs. The out-of-coverage UEs randomly choose PRB pairs from the PSCCH resource pool”, section 3.3.2, and/or “out-of-coverage scenario, the discovery is made by the devices themselves through known synchronization or reference signal sequences”, section 3.1.1 and/or “use of UAVs as relays and provides direct discovery and QoS-aware communications between public safety UEs from different organizations.”, section 3.1.1 page 11) and a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message and being received via one of a first physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), a first physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) (see e.g., “PRBs of PSSCH are periodically repeated after the PSCCH in the time domain. In PSSCH, the band of PRBs is distributed…”, section 3.3.2 , item PSSCH) or a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH) (see e.g., “All control messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs. The out-of-coverage UEs randomly choose PRB pairs from the PSCCH…”, section 3.3.2, item PSCCH); and
forward, to a base station or another aircraft-borne device, at least the first emergency message (see e.g., “The central unit of command will have a system capable of enabling emergency responder personnel for obtaining a deep control of the operations; its architecture is shown in Fig. 5. An SDR based connection will emulate the BS connectivity services for scenarios where cellular connectivity is totally unavailable. Information coming from the drone fleet will be collected in a local database…”, Fig. 5, sec. 2.2.1)
Although Masood teaches an UAV (i.e., aircraft-borne) in communication with a UE using PRBs to receive synchronization signals in PSCCH and PSSCH resources pool, however, Masood fails to explicitly disclose receive a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message .
In the same field of endeavor, Oh discloses, receive a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message (see e.g., “…indicates a payload type of the IP datagram for transmitting an emergency alert message. The payload_type_indicator field may be able to indicate a case that the payload of the IP datagram includes a separate syntax including the information of the emergency alert message…”, [0281] and/or “the payload of the IP datagram includes the emergency alert message file itself, the payload of the IP datagram may be able to include a text and/or a compressed emergency alert message file(s)”, [0284] and/or “The synchronization multiplexer 116 inserts a field synchronization signal and a segment synchronization signal into the output data of the modified trellis encoder 115 and multiplexes the data”, [0086]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 17, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the synchronization signal comprises a preamble or a demodulation reference signal (DM-RS) (see Masood e.g., “After becoming a SyncRef, it sends sidelink synchronization signals (SLSS) periodically for sharing its synchronization info... An SLSS signal is further categorized into four elements as the primary sidelink synchronization signal (PSSS)…the demodulation reference signals (DMRS)…The DMRSs have the information of the receiving UE for channel approximation…”, sec. 3.3.3, Synchronization).
Regarding Claim 18, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein at least one of the synchronization signal or the first payload is associated with one or more repetitions (see Masood e.g., “PRBs of PSSCH are periodically repeated after the PSCCH in the time domain.”, sec. 3.3.2, item PSSCH, and/or “All control messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs”, sec. 3.3.2, item PSCCH).
Regarding Claim 19, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the first set of preserved resource is associated with a time domain starting point, a time domain duration, an a frequency domain resource allocation (see Masood e.g., “choose PRB pairs from the PSCCH resource pool defined by the following pair of parameters: the number of subframes from the time domain, and that of PRBs from the frequency domain…The transmission period is a ratio of the PSCCH to the PSSCH, so by decreasing the duration of the PSSCH”, sec. 3.3.2, item PSCCH, and/or “PRBs of PSSCH are periodically repeated after the PSCCH in the time domain. In PSSCH. the band of PRBs is distributed into Nsb sub-bands in the frequency domain, whereas the set of subframes is divided into multiple time resource patterns (TRPs) on the time domain and each TRPs”, sec. 3.3.2, item PSSCH).
Regarding Claim 23, Masood and Oh combined discloses, receive, from the UE and over at least part of the first set of preserved resource, a second payload message via one of a second PUSCH or a second PSSCH (see Oh e.g., “the payload of the IP datagram includes the emergency alert message file itself, the payload of the IP datagram may be able to include a text and/or a compressed emergency alert message file(s)”, [0284] and/or “The number of repeatedly receiving the mobile emergency alert table may vary according to significance of the emergency alert message. The emergency alert message of highest significance can be repeated on every MH frame.”, [0104]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 24, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the first payload message includes an indication of at least one of a second modulation and coding scheme (MCS) (see Oh e.g., “The content_coding field indicates an encoding scheme of an emergency alert message. The content_coding field may be able to indicate a case that the emergency alert message is a plane text or a case that the emergency alert message is compressed by gzip, according to a value of this field.”, [0244]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 26, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the second payload message includes a second emergency message (see Oh e.g., “The number of repeatedly receiving the mobile emergency alert table may vary according to significance of the emergency alert message. The emergency alert message of highest significance can be repeated on every MH frame.”, [0104] and/or “the payload of the IP datagram includes the emergency alert message file itself, the payload of the IP datagram may be able to include a text and/or a compressed emergency alert message file(s)”, [0284]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 27, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the first emergency message is associated with a priority (see Oh e.g., “A descriptor for signaling an emergency alert service according to one embodiment of the present invention may include a descriptor_tag field, a descriptor_length field, a priority_level field…”, [0257] and/or “The number of repeatedly receiving the mobile emergency alert table may vary according to significance of the emergency alert message. The emergency alert message of highest significance can be repeated on every MH frame.”, [0104] and/or “the payload of the IP datagram includes the emergency alert message file itself, the payload of the IP datagram may be able to include a text and/or a compressed emergency alert message file(s)”, [0284]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085])).
Regarding Claim 28, Masood and Oh combined discloses, wherein the first emergency message comprises at least one of longitude and latitude coordinates, a time stamp, an identifier of the UE, a personal identifier, an emergency type, or an emergency level (see Oh e.g., “A descriptor for signaling an emergency alert service according to one embodiment of the present invention may include a descriptor_tag field, a descriptor_length field, a priority_level field, an EAS_message_sent_type field, an IP_address field, an UDP_port_num field, and/or a service_related_nrt_service_id field”, [0257] and/or “The descriptor_tag field indicates that a corresponding descriptor is a descriptor for a disaster alert service.”, [0258] and/or “The priority_level field indicates the extent of significance of an emergency alert message. The priority_level field may be able to indicate a case that the emergency alert message is a message to be processed preferentially…”, [0260]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Regarding Claim 29, Masood and Oh combined discloses, further comprising a transceiver coupled to the at least one processor (see Masood e.g., “an antenna array; an SOR component, responsible for the phase rotation to be applied on each antenna; the main processing unit on which the algorithms developed in the project will be deployed and interact with drone flight controls…MIMO antenna system and perform UE localization…”, sec. 2.2.2, item UAV Unit Architecture).
Regarding Claim 30, Masood disclose, a method of wireless communication at an aircraft-borne device (see e.g., Fig. 6, Drone Platform, “UAV is shown in Fig. 6”, sec. 2.2.2), comprising:
identifying a first set of preserved resources of one or more sets of preserved resources (see e.g., “messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs”, section 3.3.2 and/or “the band of PRBs is distributed into Nsb sub-bands in the frequency domain”, section 3.3.2); and
receiving, from a user equipment (UE) (see e.g., “The UE contains WiFi and/or LTE modules, able to provide D2D connectivity (Fig. 7 ). The D2D link can be established with the UAV…”, section 2.2, page 7, items 2 and 3) and over at least part of the first set of preserved resources, a synchronization signal (see e.g., “All control messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs. The out-of-coverage UEs randomly choose PRB pairs from the PSCCH resource pool”, section 3.3.2, and/or “out-of-coverage scenario, the discovery is made by the devices themselves through known synchronization or reference signal sequences”, section 3.1.1 and/or “use of UAVs as relays and provides direct discovery and QoS-aware communications between public safety UEs from different organizations.”, section 3.1.1 page 11) and a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message and being received via one of a first physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), a first physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) (see e.g., “PRBs of PSSCH are periodically repeated after the PSCCH in the time domain. In PSSCH, the band of PRBs is distributed…”, section 3.3.2 , item PSSCH) or a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH) (see e.g., “All control messages are sent twice in PSCCH in the same period with two different PRBs. The out-of-coverage UEs randomly choose PRB pairs from the PSCCH…”, section 3.3.2, item PSCCH); and
forwarding, to a base station or another aircraft-borne device, the first emergency message (see e.g., “The central unit of command will have a system capable of enabling emergency responder personnel for obtaining a deep control of the operations; its architecture is shown in Fig. 5. An SDR based connection will emulate the BS connectivity services for scenarios where cellular connectivity is totally unavailable. Information coming from the drone fleet will be collected in a local database…”, Fig. 5, sec. 2.2.1)
Although Masood teaches an UAV (i.e., aircraft-borne) in communication with a UE using PRBs to receive synchronization signals in PSCCH and PSSCH resources pool, however, Massod fails to explicitly disclose receive a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message .
In the same field of endeavor, Oh discloses, receive a first payload message, the first payload message including a first emergency message (see e.g., “…indicates a payload type of the IP datagram for transmitting an emergency alert message. The payload_type_indicator field may be able to indicate a case that the payload of the IP datagram includes a separate syntax including the information of the emergency alert message…”, [0281] and/or “the payload of the IP datagram includes the emergency alert message file itself, the payload of the IP datagram may be able to include a text and/or a compressed emergency alert message file(s)”, [0284] and/or “The synchronization multiplexer 116 inserts a field synchronization signal and a segment synchronization signal into the output data of the modified trellis encoder 115 and multiplexes the data”, [0086]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood with Oh, In order to output a known data in a form determined by a broadcast transmitting side and a broadcast receiving side in advance after the trellis encoding, providing an emergency alert service (please see Oh, para. [0085]).
Claims 5-7 and 20-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Masood, in view of Oh, and further in view of Yoshioka et al. (US 2023/0006772 A1, hereinafter Yoshioka).
Regarding Claim 5, Masood and Oh combined fails to explicitly disclose, receive, from one or more satellite, one or more satellite signal; and locate the time domain starting point with the first set of preserved resources based on the one or more satellite signals.
In the same field of endeavor, Yoshioka discloses, receive, from one or more satellite, one or more satellite signal (see e.g., “the SL carrier synchronization source is not the base station 10 is, for example, the SL carrier synchronization source is GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), eNB, or another operator gNB”, Fig. 16, [0094] and/or “base station and the mobile station may be a device installed in a mobile body, a mobile body itself, or the like. The moving body may be a vehicle (for example, a car, an airplane, or the like)”, [0165]); and
locate the time domain starting point with the first set of preserved resources based on the one or more satellite signals (see e.g., “The starting point of the first offset may be a position obtained by adding the second offset to the position of the first channel in time domain…. “, [0141] and/or “a step of determining a position of the second channel in time domain based on the first offset and a second offset which is applied to a position of the first channel in time domain and which determines a starting point of the first offset”, [0144] and/or “terminal 20A autonomously selects resources to be used for PSCCH and PSSCH from a resource selection window having a predetermined period”, [0065] and/or “the terminal 20A may transmit the SCI (PSCCH) using frequency resources adjacent to the PSSCH frequency resources with the same time resources of the PSSCH.”, [0066]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood and Oh with Yoshioka, In order to allow matching of the transmission and reception timings of the transmissions between the base station and the terminal (please see Yoshioka, para. [0141]).
Regarding Claim 6, Masood, Oh and Yoshioka combined disclose, wherein the synchronization signal is first transmitted to the aircraft-born device after a prespecified time offset has passed since the time domain starting point associated with the first set of preserved resources (see Yoshioka e.g., “in the Uu carrier, it is assumed that the base station 10 receives PUCCH at slot n+5 after two slots from slot n+3 corresponding to the PSFCH transmission/reception, assuming that the Uu carrier and the SL carrier are synchronized on the basis of slot n transmitting the PDCCH. On the other hand, the terminal 20 may transmit PUCCH at slot n+6, two slots later in the Uu carrier, starting from the position of the PSFCH in the SL carrier, in a case that the timing of the SL scheduling, considering the offset between the Uu carrier and the SL carrier described in FIG. 15, is applied. Accordingly, a correction is required to match the timing of the PUCCH between the base station 10 and the terminal 20”, [0095] and/or “the SL carrier synchronization source is GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), eNB, or another operator gNB”, [0094] and/or “base station and the mobile station may be a device installed in a mobile body, a mobile body itself, or the like. The moving body may be a vehicle (for example, a car, an airplane, or the like)”, [0165]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood and Oh with Yoshioka, In order to allow matching of the transmission and reception timings of the transmissions between the base station and the terminal (please see Yoshioka, para. [0141]).
Regarding Claim 7, Masood and Oh combined fails to explicitly disclose, wherein the one of the first PUSCH, the first PSSCH, or the PSCCH is associated with at least one of a prespecified first modulation and coding scheme (MCS), a prespecified first payload size, or a prespecified first resource allocation.
In the same field of endeavor, Yoshioka discloses, wherein the one of the first PUSCH, the first PSSCH, or the PSCCH is associated with at least one of a prespecified first modulation and coding scheme (MCS) (see e.g., “The control unit 240 performs processing pertaining to the MCS when transmitting and receiving D2D communication.”, [0123] and/or “the transmitter 210 transmits a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH), a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH), a physical sidelink discovery channel (PSDCH), a physical sidelink broadcast channel (PSBCH), and the like to another terminal 20 as D2D communication, and the receiver 220 receives PSCCH, PSSCH, PSDCH, PSBCH, and the like from another terminal 20.”, [0121]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood and Oh with Yoshioka, In order to allow matching of the transmission and reception timings of the transmissions between the base station and the terminal (please see Yoshioka, para. [0141]).
Regarding Claim 20, Masood and Oh combined fails to explicitly disclose, receive, from one or more satellite, one or more satellite signal; and locate the time domain starting point associated with the first set of preserved resources based on the one or more satellite signals.
In the same field of endeavor, Yoshioka discloses, receive, from one or more satellite, one or more satellite signal (see e.g., “the SL carrier synchronization source is not the base station 10 is, for example, the SL carrier synchronization source is GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), eNB, or another operator gNB”, Fig. 16, [0094] and/or “base station and the mobile station may be a device installed in a mobile body, a mobile body itself, or the like. The moving body may be a vehicle (for example, a car, an airplane, or the like)”, [0165]); and
locate the time domain starting point associated with the first set of preserved resources based on the one or more satellite signals (see e.g., “The starting point of the first offset may be a position obtained by adding the second offset to the position of the first channel in time domain…. “, [0141] and/or “a step of determining a position of the second channel in time domain based on the first offset and a second offset which is applied to a position of the first channel in time domain and which determines a starting point of the first offset”, [0144] and/or “terminal 20A autonomously selects resources to be used for PSCCH and PSSCH from a resource selection window having a predetermined period”, [0065] and/or “the terminal 20A may transmit the SCI (PSCCH) using frequency resources adjacent to the PSSCH frequency resources with the same time resources of the PSSCH.”, [0066]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood and Oh with Yoshioka, In order to allow matching of the transmission and reception timings of the transmissions between the base station and the terminal (please see Yoshioka, para. [0141]).
Regarding Claim 21, Masood, Oh and Yoshioka combined disclose, wherein the synchronization signal is first received after a prespecified time offset and a propagation delay have passed since the time domain starting point associated with the first set of preserved resources (see Yoshioka e.g., “in the Uu carrier, it is assumed that the base station 10 receives PUCCH at slot n+5 after two slots from slot n+3 corresponding to the PSFCH transmission/reception, assuming that the Uu carrier and the SL carrier are synchronized on the basis of slot n transmitting the PDCCH. On the other hand, the terminal 20 may transmit PUCCH at slot n+6, two slots later in the Uu carrier, starting from the position of the PSFCH in the SL carrier, in a case that the timing of the SL scheduling, considering the offset between the Uu carrier and the SL carrier described in FIG. 15, is applied. Accordingly, a correction is required to match the timing of the PUCCH between the base station 10 and the terminal 20”, [0095] and/or “the SL carrier synchronization source is GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), eNB, or another operator gNB”, [0094] and/or “base station and the mobile station may be a device installed in a mobile body, a mobile body itself, or the like. The moving body may be a vehicle (for example, a car, an airplane, or the like)”, [0165]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood and Oh with Yoshioka, In order to allow matching of the transmission and reception timings of the transmissions between the base station and the terminal (please see Yoshioka, para. [0141]).
Regarding Claim 22, Masood and Oh combined fails to explicitly disclose, wherein the one of the first PUSCH, the first PSSCH, or the PSCCH is associated with at least one of a prespecified first modulation and coding scheme (MCS), a prespecified first payload size, or a prespecified first resource allocation.
In the same field of endeavor, Yoshioka discloses, wherein the one of the first PUSCH, the first PSSCH, or the PSCCH is associated with at least one of a prespecified first modulation and coding scheme (MCS) (see e.g., “The control unit 240 performs processing pertaining to the MCS when transmitting and receiving D2D communication.”, [0123] and/or “the transmitter 210 transmits a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH), a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH), a physical sidelink discovery channel (PSDCH), a physical sidelink broadcast channel (PSBCH), and the like to another terminal 20 as D2D communication, and the receiver 220 receives PSCCH, PSSCH, PSDCH, PSBCH, and the like from another terminal 20.”, [0121]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood and Oh with Yoshioka, In order to allow matching of the transmission and reception timings of the transmissions between the base station and the terminal (please see Yoshioka, para. [0141]).
Claims 10 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Masood, in view of Oh, and further in view of OH et al. (US 2022/0110148 A1, hereinafter Oh-148).
Regarding Claim 10, Masood and Oh combined fails to explicitly disclose, wherein the first set of preserved resources is associated with a time domain duration that is at least as long as a sum of a prespecified time offset, a propagation delay, and a total transmission duration associated with the synchronization signal, the first payload message, and the second payload message.
In the same field of endeavor, Oh-148 discloses, wherein the first set of preserved resources is associated with a time domain duration that is at least as long as a sum of a prespecified time offset (see e.g., “the UE may add a minimum scheduling offset (K0min) to the slot offset (K0) value of the default time domain resource allocation table such that the same is changed to and reinterpreted as the minimum scheduling offset (K0min). In other words, the UE may reinterpret the K0 value in the default time domain resource allocation table as K0′, and here, the K0′ value may be defined as follows: K0′=K0+K0min…”, [0357] and/or “The time domain resource allocation information may include, for example, a PDCCH-to-PDSCH slot timing (corresponding to a time interval in units of slots between a time point at which a PDCCH is received and a time point at which a PDSCH scheduled by the received PDCCH is transmitted, and represented by slot offset K0), a PDCCH-to-PUSCH slot timing (K2) (corresponding to a time interval in units of slots between a time point at which a PDCCH is received and a time point at which a PUSCH scheduled by the received PDCCH is transmitted, and represented by slot offset K2)…”, Fig. 3, [0274] and/or “the UE may expect, based on the minimum scheduling offset received from the base station, that scheduling is performed only with entries, in which the slot offset K0 and/or K2 value (hereinafter, K0/K2) has a value equal to or greater than the received minimum scheduling offset, from among preconfigured values in the time domain resource allocation table”, [0287]), a propagation delay, and a total transmission duration associated with the synchronization signal, the first payload message (see e.g., “The DCI may be transmitted through a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) after channel coding and modulation is performed thereon. A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) may be attached to a DCI message payload”, [0112]), and the second payload message.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood and Oh with Oh-148, in order to support both data transmission/reception to/from a predetermined UE (please see Oh-148, para. [0095]).
Regarding Claim 25, Masood and Oh combined fails to explicitly disclose, wherein the first set of preserved resources is associated with a time domain duration that is at least as long as a sum of a prespecified time offset, a propagation delay, and a total transmission duration associated with the synchronization signal, the first payload message, and the second payload message.
In the same field of endeavor, Oh-148 discloses, wherein the first set of preserved resources is associated with a time domain duration that is at least as long as a sum of a prespecified time offset (see e.g., “the UE may add a minimum scheduling offset (K0min) to the slot offset (K0) value of the default time domain resource allocation table such that the same is changed to and reinterpreted as the minimum scheduling offset (K0min). In other words, the UE may reinterpret the K0 value in the default time domain resource allocation table as K0′, and here, the K0′ value may be defined as follows: K0′=K0+K0min…”, [0357] and/or “The time domain resource allocation information may include, for example, a PDCCH-to-PDSCH slot timing (corresponding to a time interval in units of slots between a time point at which a PDCCH is received and a time point at which a PDSCH scheduled by the received PDCCH is transmitted, and represented by slot offset K0), a PDCCH-to-PUSCH slot timing (K2) (corresponding to a time interval in units of slots between a time point at which a PDCCH is received and a time point at which a PUSCH scheduled by the received PDCCH is transmitted, and represented by slot offset K2)…”, Fig. 3, [0274] and/or “the UE may expect, based on the minimum scheduling offset received from the base station, that scheduling is performed only with entries, in which the slot offset K0 and/or K2 value (hereinafter, K0/K2) has a value equal to or greater than the received minimum scheduling offset, from among preconfigured values in the time domain resource allocation table”, [0287]), a propagation delay, and a total transmission duration associated with the synchronization signal, the first payload message (see e.g., “The DCI may be transmitted through a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) after channel coding and modulation is performed thereon. A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) may be attached to a DCI message payload”, [0112]), and the second payload message.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood and Oh with Oh-148, in order to support both data transmission/reception to/from a predetermined UE (please see Oh-148, para. [0095]).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Masood, in view of Oh, and further in view of SI et al. (US 2024/0031934 A1, hereinafter Si).
Regarding Claim 13, Masood and Oh combined fails to explicitly disclose, perform autonomous pre-compensation for a timing advance based on allocation of the aircraft device relative to a location of the UE.
In the same field of endeavor, Si discloses, perform autonomous pre-compensation for a timing advance based on allocation of the aircraft device relative to a location of the UE (see e.g., “Although the UE completes the timing advance in the random access, the location of the UE may change with time, and therefore, the base station needs to maintain the timing advance constantly…”, [0091]); and
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine teachings of Masood and Oh with Si, in order to reduce overhead by and meet UE requirements on power consumption (please see Si, para. [0124]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FARID SEYEDVOSOGHI whose telephone number is (571)272-9679. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 8:00-5:00.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Anthony S. Addy can be reached at 5712727795. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/FARID SEYEDVOSOGHI/Examiner, Art Unit 2645