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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. GR 20220100203, filed on March 4, 2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 3 objected to because of the following informalities: TTD should be TDD. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 7 objected to because of the following informalities: A semicolon should follow “second network entity” in the second body limitation. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1 – 2, 4 – 6, 11 – 13, 16 – 18 and 25 – 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Edge (US 20200267683 A1) in view of DA (US 20220236362 A1 ) as a translation corresponding to Da (WO 2020/238639 A1) as provided for on the IDS.
As to claims 1, 11, 16 and 25, Edge discloses a method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE), the method comprising:
generating, by a UE (Fig. 9 UE 900 and transceiver 902), first downlink (DL) phase information based on a first round trip time (RTT) associated with a first network entity (Para.7 “a user equipment (UE) capable of performing location determination of the UE, includes a wireless transceiver configured to wirelessly communicate with base stations in a Radio Access Network (RAN); … obtain Round Trip Time (RTT) measurements for the plurality of base stations at the second periodic interval, based on the location information received from the network entity;”);
generating, by the UE, second DL phase information based on a second RTT associated with a second network entity (Id. “plurality of base stations”); and
obtaining, by the UE, a position associated with the UE based on the first DL phase information and the second DL phase information (Para. 7 “determine Real Time Differences (RTDs) at the second periodic interval for pairs of base stations in the plurality of base stations based on the measured RSTDs and the RTT measurements; and determine a location of the UE at the first periodic interval using Observed Time Difference of Arrival (OTDOA) based on the RSTDs and most recent RTDs,”.)”.
Also, regarding claims 16 and 25, Edge Fig. 2 – 3 shows multiple different entities and multiple RTT’s.
Although OTDOA often includes phase, Edge does not specifically state phase information. Edge does teach “With a UE assisted position method, UE 105 may obtain location measurements (e.g., measurements of RSSI, Rx-Tx, RTT, RSTD, RSRP and/or RSRQ for DL RS s or PRSs transmitted by gNBs 110, ng-eNB 114 or WLAN APs, or measurements of GNSS pseudorange, code phase and/or carrier phase for navigation signals transmitted by SVs 190) and may send the location measurements to an entity performing a location server function, e.g., SgNB 110-1, LMC 140, LMF 152, or SLP 153, for computation of a location estimate for UE 105 (Para. 57).” Thus, Edge appreciates the need for phase measurements.
In the same field of endeavor, Da teaches “The UE carrier phase positioning needs to use the UE position estimation obtained by the OTDOA and/or RTT as the initial value of the carrier phase positioning. The accurate initial UE position estimation is one of the keys to reducing the search time for integer ambiguity of carrier phase positioning (US Para. 156 or WO Para. 86).”
In view of the teachings of Da, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before filing to apply phase information in order to reduce he search time for integer ambiguity of carrier phase positioning thereby improving accuracy.
As to claim 2, Edge in view of Da teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: maintaining an internal carrier phase during at least a portion of the first RTT (The modification in claim 1 is using phase for measurements. See also Da ‘362 Para. 160 “obtained by the carrier signal phase-locked loop from the intermittently sent TDD downlink signal is the ‘appropriate’ carrier phase positioning measurement value, where θ.sub.i.sup.m represents the measurement value at time t.sub.i.” The motivation to use accurate phase is the desire to have accurate results.);
performing a time division duplex (TDD) switch during the first RTT, wherein the portion of the first RTT includes the TDD switch (Da Para. 160 the motivation is to switch from transmit to receive to avoid interference.); and
wherein the first network entity is configured to maintain an internal carrier phase associated with the first network entity, and wherein: the first DL phase information includes an observed phase measured based on a downlink signal received via a receive component of the UE (Da Para 160 as already cited including the motivation.); the RTT includes a new radio (NR) RTT (Edge Para. 28 “5G”.); the UE, the first network entity, and the second network entity are included in an asynchronous network; the first RTT and the second RTT are associated with side link (SL) positioning operations; or a combination thereof.
As to claim 4, Edge in view of Da teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: performing the first RTT with the first network entity, the first RTT associated with a first DL carrier frequency and a first uplink (UL) carrier frequency; and performing the second RTT with the second network entity, the second RTT associated with a second DL carrier frequency and a second UL carrier frequency (Edge: Fig. 2 Para. 31, 44, 57, 84 “carrier frequency”), and wherein: the first DL carrier frequency and the first UL carrier frequency have different bandwidths (Edge: Para. 101 “different non-overlapping frequency ranges”);the first DL carrier frequency and the first UL carrier frequency have the same center frequency; or a combination thereof.
As to claim 5, Edge in view of Ra teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: transmitting the first DL phase information to a location management function (LMF); and transmitting the second DL phase information to the LMF; and wherein obtaining the position includes receiving the position from the LMF (Edge Para. 57 as cited in claim 1; Da Fig. 1 indicates that a server is performing the calculations for a terminal. One of ordinary skill understands that a server has more computing capacity than a terminal, e.g., mobile phone, thus the motivation would be to save processing storage capacity for the terminal.).
As to claim 6, Edge in view of Da teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving first UL phase information based on the first RTT, the first UL phase information determined by the first network entity; and receiving second UL phase information based on the first RTT, the second UL phase information determined by the second network entity, and wherein obtaining the position includes determining the position based on a first DL carrier frequency associated with the first RTT, a first UL carrier frequency associated with the first RTT, a second DL carrier frequency associated with the second RTT, a second UL carrier frequency associated with the second RTT, or a combination thereof (Edge Figs. 2 – 3 shows UL and DL and Edge teaches a carrier throughout wherein carrier = smaller wavelength = smaller antenna, which is a good thing. See Edge Paras. 44, 57 and 84. Note the claims do not require different carriers.).
As to claim 12, Edge in view of Da teaches the UE of claim 11, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the processor-readable code to cause the at least one processor to: initiate transmission of the first DL phase information to a location management function (LMF); and initiate transmission of the second DL phase information to the LMF; and wherein, to obtain the position, the position is received from the LMF (Edge Para. 57 as cited in claim 1; Da Fig. 1 indicates that a server is performing the calculations for a terminal. One of ordinary skill understands that a server has more computing capacity than a terminal, e.g., mobile phone, thus the motivation would be to save processing storage capacity for the terminal).
As to claim 13, Edge in view of Da teaches the UE of claim 11, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the processor-readable code to cause the at least one processor to: receive first UL phase information based on the first RTT, the first UL phase information determined by the first network entity; and receive second UL phase information based on the first RTT, the second UL phase information determined by the second network entity, and determine the position based on a first DL carrier frequency associated with the first RTT, a first UL carrier frequency associated with the first RTT, a second DL carrier frequency associated with the second RTT, a second UL carrier frequency associated with the second RTT, or a combination thereof (Edge Figs. 2 – 3 show UL and DL and as modified by Da in claims 1 and 11 include phase.).
As to claim 17, Edge in view of Da teaches the method of claim 16, further comprising transmitting an indicator that indicates the position (Edge Paras. 3 and 53).
As to claims 18, Edge in view of Da teaches the method of claim 16, further comprising: determining, for each RTT information of the multiple sets of RTT information (Edge Figs. 2 – 3 see also Para. 46 “RSSI, RSRP, RSRQ, TOA, Rx-Tx, AOA and RTT”), a constraint (Edge Para. 44 “bandwidth” dictates resolution thus meets the scope of constraint as broadly claimed.); and wherein each RTT information of the multiple sets of RTT information including downlink (DL) phase information, uplink (UL) phase information (As modified by Da in claim 1), a DL carrier frequency, and a UL carrier frequency (at least Para. 44 “carrier frequency” Also note that carrier frequency is inherent to all upconverted signals to have smaller wavelength allowing for smaller antennae.).
As to claim 26, Edge in view of Da teaches the network entity of claim 25, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to execute the processor-readable code to cause the at least one processor to initiate transmission of an indicator that indicates the position (Edge Paras. 3 and 53).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 7 – 10, 14 – 15, 19 – 24 and 27 – 30 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The prior art does not teach all features of the objected claims 3, 7 – 9, 14 – 15, 19 – 24 and 27 – 30.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL W JUSTICE whose telephone number is (571)270-7029. The examiner can normally be reached 7:30 - 5:30 M-F.
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/MICHAEL W JUSTICE/Examiner, Art Unit 3648