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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 03/27/2024, 09/05/2025, and 12/12/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Interpretation
Under MPEP 2143.03, "All words in a claim must be considered in judging the patentability of that claim against the prior art." In re Wilson, 424 F.2d 1382, 1385, 165 USPQ 494, 496 (CCPA 1970). As a general matter, the grammar and ordinary meaning of terms as understood by one having ordinary skill in the art used in a claim will dictate whether, and to what extent, the language limits the claim scope. Language that suggests or makes a feature or step optional but does not require that feature or step does not limit the scope of a claim under the broadest reasonable claim interpretation. In addition, when a claim requires selection of an element from a list of alternatives, the prior art teaches the element if one of the alternatives is taught by the prior art. See, e.g., Fresenius USA, Inc. v. Baxter Int’l, Inc., 582 F.3d 1288, 1298, 92 USPQ2d 1163, 1171 (Fed. Cir. 2009).
Claims 2-4, 7, 11, 13, 15, 22, and 24-25 recite “at least one of.” Since “at least one of” is disjunctive, any one of the elements found in the prior art is sufficient to reject the claim. While citations have been provided for completeness and rapid prosecution, only one element is required. Because, on balance, it appears the disjunctive interpretation enjoys the most specification support and for that reason the disjunctive interpretation (one of A, B OR C) is being adopted for the purposes of this Office Action. Applicant’s comments and/or amendments relating to this issue are invited to clarify the claim language and the prosecution history.
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.
Claims 1-4,7-11,13-15,17,19-20,22-25 and 31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Määttänen et al. US 2022 0086713 A1 (hereinafter “Maattanen”) in view of Li et al., US 2021 0092561 A1 (hereinafter “Li”).
Regarding Claim 1, Maattanen teaches a method for reporting location-related information, performed by a terminal, (Page 10, Paragraph 55, Fig. 4, Block 406, UE generates/transmits a reporting message containing positioning information satisfying position conditionality or criterion relative to a current position of the UE terminal) comprising:
reducing a precision of the location-related information of the terminal (Page 13, Paragraph 72, UE terminal can be configured to report its measured position with reduced precision); and
reporting the location-related information having the precision reduced to a base station (Pages 13-14, Paragraphs 74-76, UE terminal configured to report periodically or as a response to event-based triggering; various triggering criteria comprising, for example, configurable timing parameters, changes to UE location in relation to area of reference or reported reference location[s], for example).
Maattanen fails to fully teach the limitation:
reporting the location-related information having the precision reduced to a base station (Maattanen fails to teach a purpose indicated within the reported located-relation information, wherein the purpose comprises at least one of: a Timing Advance [TA] report, Minimization of Drive-Test [MDT], and Self Organization Network [SON]);
However, Li further teaches the limitation:
reporting the location-related information having the precision reduced to a base station (Li discloses terminal-assisted positioning scenarios, wherein the terminal provides UE information response may include MDT measurements or RRM measurement configurations [Li, Pages 7-8, Paragraphs 128-165, Figs. 8-10, location information methods, logged-type MDT measurement result, radio resource measurement [RRM] measurement configuration information, signaling-based MDT function])
Although Maattanen addresses the remaining limitations of claim 1, Li teaches a method for reporting location-related information, performed by a terminal (Li, Page 6, Paragraphs 108-118, Fig. 6, Example One; Page 8, Paragraphs 175-181, Fig. 13, Example Eight), comprising:
reducing a precision of the location-related information of the terminal (Li, Page 4, Paragraphs 67-80, Fig. 3, location measurement method applied to a terminal, positioning measurement may be filtered according to auxiliary positioning information; filtering indication information based on received auxiliary positioning information requirements, reporting measurement results); and
reporting the location-related information having the precision reduced to a base station (Li, Page 4, Paragraphs 73-77, auxiliary positioning information may include a valid positioning area, which includes a valid TA list and a cell list; Pages 7-8, Paragraphs 128-165, Figs. 8-10).
Li and Maattanen are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of locating users or terminals for network management purposes (e.g., mobility management {or network equipment). Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Maattanen to incorporate the teachings of Li reporting the location-related information having the precision reduced to a base station. Doing so would provide dynamic methods for improved reporting of location-related information of the terminal.
Regarding Claim 2, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 1, wherein reducing the precision of the location-related information of the terminal comprises at least one of:
setting a value of a preset bit in the location-related information to a specified value;
setting a value of a preset bit in the location-related information to a random value;
adding a random value to a value of a preset bit in the location-related information, or subtracting a random value from a value of a preset bit in the location-related information, or multiplying a value of a preset bit in the location-related information by a random value, or dividing a value of a preset bit in the location-related information by a random value; or
ignoring a value of a preset bit in the location-related information (Maattanen, Page 12, Paragraph 70, configurable parameters for a function or mathematical relationship that generates set of index reference locations; configuration of suitable functional/mathematical relations for generating potential reference location points, determining applicable geographic area(s), applicable levels, and the like; Pages 4-5, Paragraphs 77-80, auxiliary positioning information may include filtering indication information; Page 8, Paragraphs 175-181, Fig. 13, terminal calculation result based on the auxiliary positioning information parameters).
Regarding Claim 3, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the location-related information comprises location coordinate information, the location-related information having the precision reduced is carried in an Information Element (IE) and sent to the base station, and the IE comprises at least one of:
a location coordinate IE (locationCoordinate IE);
a Bluetooth log measurement result list IE (LogMeasResultListBT IE);
a wireless local network (WLAN) log measurement result list IE (LogMeasResultWLAN IE); or
a sensor location information IE (Sensor-Locationlnfo IE) (Maattanen, Page 11 and Page 13, Paragraph 63, reference location information, may comprise ellipsoid shapes or other geometric shapes associated with corresponding geometric centers; Paragraph 72, UE location report content responsive to criterion/requirement, UE can be configured to include indices of the ellipsoids within which UE locates [Fig. 6, indices E1 and E4, corresponding to ellipsoids 608-1 and 608-4, respectively]; Li, Pages 3-4, Paragraphs 51-56, BT node, received signal strength indication [RSSI] of the device received by the terminal, Wifi node)
Regarding Claim 4, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 3, wherein reducing the precision of the location-related information of the terminal comprises one of:
reducing the precision of the location-related information by adjusting an uncertainty field in the locationCoordinate IE, wherein the IE comprises the locationCoordinate IE;
reducing the precision of the location-related information by adjusting a received signal strength indication (RSSI) field in the at least one of the LogMeasResultListBT IE or the LogMeasResultWLAN IE, wherein the IEcomprises at least one of the LogMeasResultListBT IE or the LogMeasResultWLAN IE; or
reducing the precision of the location-related information by adjusting an atmospheric pressure field in the Sensor-Locationlnfo IE, wherein the IE comprises the Sensor- LocationInfo IE (Maattanen, Page 11, Paragraph 63, reference location information; Page 13, Paragraph 72, UE location report content responsive to criterion/requirement, UE terminal can be configured to report its measured position with reduced precision; Li, Page 8, Paragraphs 175-181, terminal filters positioning nodes according to the auxiliary positioning information, and performs location measurement and calculation according to the filtered positioning node to obtain a location calculation result of the terminal).
Regarding Claim 7, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 1. Maattanen does not teach the method of claim 7 (Maattanen teaches UE terminal configured to report periodically or as a response to event-based triggering; various triggering criteria comprising, for example, configurable timing parameters, changes to UE location in relation to area of reference or reported reference location[s], for example [Pages 13-14, Paragraph 74-76). Li teaches the method of claim 7, further comprising:
indicating a purpose of reporting the location-related information, wherein the purpose comprises at least one of:
Timing advance (TA) report, Minimization of Drive-Test (MDT), and Self Organization Network (SON) (Li, Page 4, Paragraphs 73-77, auxiliary positioning information may include a valid positioning area, which includes a valid TA list and a cell list; Pages 7-8, Paragraphs 128-165, Figs. 8-10, location information methods, logged-type MDT measurement result, radio resource measurement [RRM] measurement configuration information, signaling-based MDT function).
Regarding Claim 8, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 1, wherein reducing the precision of the location- related information of the terminal comprises:
reducing the precision of the location-related information based on a precision reduction requirement indicated by the base station (Maattanen, Page 13, Paragraph 72, UE location report content responsive to conditionalities signaled by the network, which may be network-configurable, predefined by rules, and/or dependent on UE terminal capabilities, service functionalities, a UE terminal can therefore be configured to report its measured position with reduced precision; Li, Page 4, Paragraphs 67-80, Fig. 3, location measurement method applied to a terminal, positioning measurement may be filtered according to auxiliary positioning information; filtering indication information based on received auxiliary positioning information requirements, reporting measurement results).
Regarding Claim 9, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising:
determining, based on an indication of the base station, that the location- related information having the precision not reduced needs to be reported; and
reporting the location-related information having the precision not reduced to the base station (Maattanen, Page 13, Paragraph 72, UE location report content responsive to conditionalities; Li, Page 4, Paragraphs 67-80, location measurement method applied to a terminal, positioning measurement may be filtered according to auxiliary positioning information).
Regarding Claim 10, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 1. Li does not teach the method of claim 10. Maattanen teaches the method of claim 10, wherein reporting the location-related information having the precision reduced to the base station, comprises:
determining whether a trigger condition is satisfied; and
reporting the location-related information having the precision reduced, wherein it is determined that the trigger is condition is satisfied. (Maattanen, Page 13, Paragraph 72, UE location report content responsive to conditionalities; Page 14, Paragraphs 77-78, a location report and/or update may be included in a UE response that may be generated in response to a specific request message from the network node requesting the UE terminal to provide such information).
Regarding Claim 11, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 10, wherein
determining whether the trigger condition is satisfied comprises one of:
determining that a distance between a current location and a location at which the location-related information was reported previously is greater than a location offset threshold, and determining that the trigger condition is satisfied, wherein the location-related information comprises location coordinate information, the trigger condition comprises the location offset threshold (Li, Page 13, Paragraphs 71-73, UE location report content responsive to conditionalities, which may be network-configurable, predefined by rules, and/or dependent on UE terminal capabilities, service functionalities; Pages 13-14, Paragraphs 74-76, UE triggering criteria can be configured for a UE terminal with respect to when reports generated/transmitted; Paragraph 79, tracking conditionalities, distance between the present location of the UE and reference location in the list exceeds distance threshold, UE required to perform tracking update).
Regarding Claim 13, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 10, wherein the location-related information comprises a TA, the method further comprises one of:
determining, based on an indication of the base station, to report the TA by means of TA reporting, and determining whether the trigger condition is satisfied based on a variation between a current TA and a TA when the location-related information was reported previously; or
determining, based on an indication of the base station, that the TA is reported by means of user equipment (UE) location reporting, and determining whether the trigger condition is satisfied based on a variance between a current location and a location of the terminal when location-related information was reported previously (Maattanen fails to teach the location-related information comprising a TA. However, Maattanen discloses a network node may be capable of obtaining, determining, otherwise acquiring and/or supplementing reference location data relative to a UE device [Page 10, Paragraph 58]. Further, Maattanen discloses the configurable conditionality that defines the UE location report content [Page 13, Paragraphs 71-73] as well as UE triggering criteria and tracking conditionalities [Pages 13-14, Paragraphs 74-76 and 79]; Li, Pages 3-4, Paragraph 48-50, information on the valid positioning area includes a valid TA list and a cell list; Paragraphs 73-76, auxiliary positioning information may include information on a positioning node, a limit threshold for the number of positioning nodes reported by the terminal, and information on a valid positioning area, information on the valid positioning area includes a valid TA list and a cell list).
Regarding Claim 14, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 13, wherein determining whether the trigger condition is satisfied based on the variation between the current TA and the TA when the location-related information was reported previously, comprises:
determining whether the trigger condition is satisfied based on the variation between the current TA and the TA when the location-related information was reported previously and a report content is the TA (Maattanen fails to teach the report content is the TA. However, Maattanen discloses a network node may be capable of obtaining, determining, otherwise acquiring and/or supplementing reference location data relative to a UE device [Page 10, Paragraph 58], configurable conditionality that defines the UE location report content [Page 13, Paragraphs 71-73], UE triggering criteria and tracking conditionalities [Pages 13-14, Paragraphs 74-76 and 79]; Li, Pages 3-4, Paragraph 48-50, information on the valid positioning area includes a valid TA list and a cell list; Paragraphs 73-76, auxiliary positioning information).
Regarding Claim 15, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 13, wherein reporting the location-related information having the precision reduced, comprises one of:
determining, based on the indication of the base station, that the location-related information is reported by other means, determining that reporting the TA by means of TA reporting is triggered, and stopping reporting the TA by means of TA reporting; or
determining, based on the indication of the base station, that the location-related information is reported by other means, determining that reporting the TA by means of UE location reporting is triggered, and stopping reporting the TA by means of UE location reporting, or reporting the TA by means of UE location reporting and reporting the location-related information by other means (Maattanen does not disclose reporting the TA. Maattanen discloses a network node may be capable of obtaining, determining, otherwise acquiring and/or supplementing reference location data relative to a UE device [Page 10, Paragraph 58], configurable conditionality that defines the UE location report content [Page 13, Paragraphs 71-73], UE triggering criteria and tracking conditionalities [Pages 13-14, Paragraphs 74-76 and 79]; Li, Pages 3-4, Paragraph 48-50, information on the valid positioning area; Paragraphs 73-76, auxiliary positioning; Pages 5-6, Paragraph 80, the terminal measures the valid positioning nodes obtained after the filtering operation and reports the measurement result, thus saving air interface resources and computing resources; Paragraph 114, needs of the operator may require for the terminal to be instructed in the positioning auxiliary information to search, measure and report devices that do not match device features in the positioning auxiliary information).
Regarding Claim 17, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 13, wherein determining whether the trigger condition is satisfied based on the variance between the current location and the location of the terminal when the location-related information was reported previously, comprises:
determining whether the trigger condition is satisfied based on the variance between the current location and the location of the terminal when the location-related information was reported previously and a report content is location coordinate information (Maattanen, Pages 13-14, Paragraphs 72-74, UE location report content conditionalities, UE triggering criteria; Paragraphs 77-79, location report and/or update, tracking conditionalities, distance between the present location of the UE and reference location in the list exceeds distance threshold, UE required to perform tracking update).
Regarding Claim 19, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising:
determining that there is a need to switch to a target base station; and
sending the location-related information to the target base station (Maattanen, Page 9, Paragraph 53, the network node may be configured to perform one or more actions [actions i-iv, for example] responsive to receiving the reporting message from the UE terminal; Pages 13-14, Paragraphs 74-76, UE triggering criteria; Paragraphs 77-78, Page 14, Paragraph 77-78, UE location can be used to signal a handover command to a new satellite cell or to select what cells that should be used for paging; a location report and/or update may be included in a UE response that may be generated in response to a specific request message from the network node requesting the UE terminal to provide such information; Li, Page 5, Paragraph 118, target base station).
Regarding Claim 20, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 19, wherein sending the location-related information to the target base station, comprises:
sending the location-related information to the target base station during a process of switching to the target base station (Maattanen, Pages 13-14, Paragraphs 74-78, UE triggering criteria, UE location report/update; Li, Page 5, Paragraph 118, target base station).
Regarding Claim 22, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 1, wherein whether to obtain the location-related information and report the location-related information having the precision reduced in a case where available location-related information is not stored is determined based on at least one of:
an indication of the base station;
a trigger event that triggers reporting the location-related information;
a purpose of reporting the location-related information;
a state of the terminal; and
a precision of the location-related information to be reduced (Maattanen, Page 10, Paragraph 55 and 57, UE generates and transmits a reporting message, positioning information, determined to satisfy a position conditionality or criterion relative to a current position of the UE terminal; Pages 13-14, Paragraphs 72 and 74-76, UE location report content, UE triggering criteria; Pages 15-16, Paragraph 87, UE may locally store one or more index-based location reports; Li, Page 3, Paragraphs 40-46, base station, sending determined auxiliary positioning information to a terminal, wherein the auxiliary positioning information is used by the terminal for positioning measurement).
Regarding Claim 23, Maattanen in view of Li teaches a method for receiving location-related information, performed by a base station (Maattanen, Pages 16-17, Paragraph 92, examples of network nodes, base station; Li, Page 3, Paragraphs 40-46, Fig. 2, Steps 210-220, base station, sending determined auxiliary positioning information to a terminal, wherein the auxiliary positioning information is used by the terminal for positioning measurement), comprising:
sending a precision reduction requirement to a terminal; and receiving the location-related information having a precision reduced sent by a-the terminal (Maattanen, Page 9, Paragraphs 52-54, Fig. 3a, Blocks 302-304, triggering/reporting criteria transmitted to the UE from the network node; Block 306, receiving reporting message, containing positioning information, position conditionality/criterion relative to a current position of the UE terminal; Li, Page 4, Paragraphs 64-66, obtaining terminal positioning measurement information reported by the terminal)
Regarding Claim 24, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 23, wherein location-related information comprises location coordinate information, the location-related information having the precision reduced is obtained from an IE, and the IE comprises at least one of:
a location coordinate IE (locationCoordinate IE);
a Bluetooth log measurement result list IE (LogMeasResultListBT IE);
a wireless local network (WLAN) log measurement result list IE (LogMeasResultWLAN IE); or
a sensor location information IE (Sensor-LocationInfo IE) (Maattanen, Page 11 and Page 13, Paragraph 63, reference location information, may comprise ellipsoid shapes or other geometric shapes associated with corresponding geometric centers; Paragraph 72, UE location report content responsive to criterion/requirement, UE can be configured to include indices of the ellipsoids within which UE locates [Fig. 6, indices E1 and E4, corresponding to ellipsoids 608-1 and 608-4, respectively]; Li, Pages 3-4, Paragraphs 51-56, BT node, received signal strength indication [RSSI] of the device received by the terminal, Wifi node).
Regarding Claim 25, Maattanen in view of Li teaches the method of claim 23. Maattanen does not teach the method of Claim 25 (Maattanen teaches UE terminal configured to report periodically or as a response to event-based triggering; various triggering criteria comprising, for example, configurable timing parameters, changes to UE location in relation to area of reference or reported reference location[s], for example [Pages 13-14, Paragraph 74-76). Li teaches the method of claim 25, further comprising:
determining, based on an indication of the terminal, a purpose of reporting the location-related information, wherein the purpose comprises at least one of:
Timing advance (TA) report, Minimization of Drive-Test (MDT), and Self Organization Network (SON) (Li, Page 4, Paragraphs 73-77, auxiliary positioning information may include a valid positioning area, which includes a valid TA list and a cell list; Pages 7-8, Paragraphs 128-165, Figs. 8-10, location information methods, logged-type MDT measurement result, radio resource measurement [RRM] measurement configuration information, signaling-based MDT function).
Regarding Claim 31, Maattanen in view of Li teaches a terminal, comprising:
a processor;
a memory for storing a computer program; wherein
when the computer program is executed by the processor, the processor is configured to (Maattanen, Pages 15-16, Paragraph 87, Fig. 12, UE, processor, execution of various stored program instructions embodied in a persistent memory; Li, Page 5, Paragraphs 102-103, terminal memory, processor, location information measurement program):
reduce a precision of a location-related information of the terminal (Maattanen, Page 13, Paragraph 72, UE terminal can be configured to report its measured position with reduced precision; Li, Page 4, Paragraphs 67-80, location measurement method applied to a terminal, positioning measurement may be filtered according to auxiliary positioning information; filtering indication information based on received auxiliary positioning information requirements, reporting measurement results); and
report the location-related information having the precision reduced to a base station (Maattanen, Pages 13-14, Paragraphs 74-76, UE terminal configured to report periodically or as a response to event-based triggering; various triggering criteria comprising, for example, configurable timing parameters, changes to UE location in relation to area of reference or reported reference location[s], for example; Li, Page 4, Paragraphs 73-77, auxiliary positioning information may include a valid positioning area, which includes a valid TA list and a cell list; Pages 7-8, Paragraphs 128-165, location information methods, logged-type MDT measurement result, radio resource measurement [RRM] measurement configuration information, signaling-based MDT function).
Conclusion
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/GABRIELLE N DAI/Examiner, Art Unit 2681
/AKWASI M SARPONG/SPE, Art Unit 2681 5/29/2026
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