DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . This action is in response to the communication filed on 6/11/2024. Claims 1-70 are pending.
Examiner Note
The examiner is here to serve, to assist, and to help applicant to the very best of his ability. The Primary Patent Examiner position is a position of serving and it is an honor to externally serve the applicant and attorney and to internally serve junior examiners and supervisors. The goal of the examiner is to work with and assist applicant to move cases along as efficiently as possible.
Applicant is encouraged to call examiner to schedule an interview if applicant has any questions about this action, wants to discuss any possible paths forward, has proposed amendments to the claims to run by the examiner, or for any other issues that applicant would like to discuss.
Examiner can normally be reached at (571) 270-3863 or michael.keller@uspto.gov, Monday-Friday, from about 6 AM - 10 PM EST and if your call is missed examiner will try to return call quickly, thank you.
Priority
This application claims priority of GB20220100102, filed 2/2/2022. The assignee of record is QUALCOMM Incorporated. The listed inventor(s) is/are: MANOLAKOS, Alexandros; KUMAR, Mukesh; YERRAMALLI, Srinivas; OPSHAUG, Guttorm Ringstad; SIDDHANT, Fnu.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 6/11/2024 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the IDS(s) is/are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-5, 8-25, 28-40, 43-60, 63-70 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (WO 2021259318 A1, published 12/30/2021, PE2E English translation provided with the FAOM) in view of Qi (WO 2020167052 A1, published 8/20/2020).
For Claim 1, Li teaches a method for wireless communications at a user equipment (UE) (Li abstract), comprising: receiving, at the UE, a plurality of resource blocks associated with a positioning reference signal (PRS), wherein a comb structure of the PRS is repeated in … resource blocks of the plurality of resource blocks (Li Pg 17 As shown in Fig. 4, it is assumed that each TRP is configured with M=2 PRS resources, each PRS resource adopts the mode of comb=2, occupies 6 OFDM symbols, and different PRS resources point to different directions.); and
transmitting a phase measurement report to a first network entity (Li Pg 17-18 The positioning server configures the terminal to report P=3 TRP (represented as TRP0, TRP1 and TRP2) NR carrier phase measurement values. The system stipulates that the NR carrier phase measurement value includes the phase measurement value of N=2 subcarriers, which is expressed as the absolute phase measurement value and the differential phase measurement value corresponding to the first subcarrier.), the phase measurement report including information associated with a measured phase difference between at least one subcarrier set pair of the plurality of resource blocks, wherein a subcarrier set includes at least one subcarrier (Li Pg 18 The terminal measures the absolute value φ_0 of the NR carrier phase of the PRB0 subcarrier 1, and at the same time measures the absolute value φ_1 of the NR carrier phase of the PRB2 subcarrier 8, and calculates the difference between this absolute value and the absolute value of the subcarrier 1 Value φ_1-φ_0. The terminal reports the absolute value φ_0 and the difference value φ_1-φ_0 to the positioning server as the NR carrier phase measurement value.).
Li does not explicitly teach wherein a comb structure of the PRS is repeated in less than all resource blocks of the plurality of resource blocks.
However, Qi teaches wherein a comb structure of the PRS is repeated in less than all resource blocks of the plurality of resource blocks (Qi Fig. 2, ¶ 101-103 FIGURE 2 illustrates a mapping pattern at the Resource Block (RB) level according to embodiments of the present disclosure.
As shown in FIGURE 2, for DL, PRS may be mapped to Resource Elements (REs) of a frame structure according to any suitable mapping scheme. FIGURE 2 illustrates exemplary PRS mapping patterns. FIGURE 2 illustrates a mapping pattern at the Resource Block (RB) level.
In some examples, a mapping scheme at the RB level may be used. For example, according to a comb-m pattern at the RB level, every m-th RB may include PRS while other RBs may not include PRS. FIGURE 2 illustrates a comb-3 pattern at the RB level. The skilled person will appreciate that any other suitable schemes at the RB level may be used.).
Qi and Li are analogous art because they are both related to PRS.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the comb-k pattern techniques of Qi with the system of Li because for a comb-k pattern, the power of PRS REs may be boosted by k times (i.e. relative to the normal/reference power) (Qi ¶ 108).
For Claim 2, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, wherein, according to the comb structure, a first subset of resource blocks from the plurality of resource blocks includes data for the PRS (Qi ¶ 103).
For Claim 3, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 2, wherein, according to the comb structure, a second subset of resource blocks from the plurality of resource blocks does not include data for the PRS (Qi ¶ 103).
For Claim 4, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the comb structure of the PRS is repeated once in every four consecutive resource blocks of the plurality of resource blocks (Qi ¶ 103).
For Claim 5, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the comb structure of the PRS is repeated twice in every four consecutive resource blocks of the plurality of resource blocks (Qi ¶ 103).
For Claim 8, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of consecutive symbols of a resource block from the plurality of resource blocks include data associated with the PRS (Qi ¶ 103).
For Claim 9, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of consecutive symbols is associated with a common subcarrier index (Qi ¶ 101-103).
For Claim 10, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, wherein each resource block from the plurality of resource blocks includes a set of non-uniform subcarriers including data associated with the PRS (Qi ¶ 101-10).
For Claim 11, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of consecutive symbols of a resource block from the plurality of resource blocks include data associated with the PRS, and wherein each resource block from the plurality of resource blocks includes a set of non-uniform subcarriers including data associated with the PRS (Qi ¶ 101-103).
For Claim 12, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, at the UE, a message indicating that resource elements of a first resource block associated with a first PRS resource of the PRS are to be combined with resource elements of a second resource block associated with a second PRS resource of the PRS; and combining, based on the message, the resource elements of the first resource block with the resource elements of the second resource block (Qi ¶ 101-103).
For Claim 13, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 12, wherein one or more resource elements from the resource elements of the first resource block combined with the resource elements of the second resource block are removed (Qi ¶ 101-103).
For Claim 14, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of resource blocks are received from the first network entity (Li Pg 2, 17).
For Claim 15, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the first network entity is a location server (Li Pg 2, 17).
For Claim 16, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of resource blocks are received from a second network entity, the second network entity being different from the first network entity (Li Pg 2, 17).
For Claim 17, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 16, wherein the first network entity is a location server and the second network entity is a base station (Li Pg 2, 17).
For Claim 18, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, at the UE from the first network entity, a carrier phase measurement request for reporting phase measurements for one or more subcarrier set pairs of the plurality of resource blocks (Li Pg 2, 17); and transmitting the phase measurement report to the first network entity based on the carrier phase measurement request (Li Pg 2, 17).
For Claim 19, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 18, further comprising: measuring, at the UE based on the carrier phase measurement request, the phase difference between the at least one subcarrier set pair of the one or more subcarrier set pairs of subcarriers (Li Pg 2, 17).
For Claim(s) 20, 55, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 1 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 21, 56, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 15 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 22, 57, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 2 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 23, 58, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 3 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 24, 59, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 4 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 25, 60, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 5 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 28, 63, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 8 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 29, 64, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 9 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 30, 65, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 10 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 31, 66, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 11 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 32, 67, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 12 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 33, 68, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 13 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 34, 69, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 14 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 35, 70, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 18 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 36, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 1 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 37, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 2 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 38, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 3 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 39, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 4 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 40, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 5 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 43, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 8 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 44, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 9 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 45, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 10 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 46, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 11 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 47, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 12 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 48, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 13 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 49, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 14 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 50, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 15 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 51, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 16 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 52, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 17 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 53, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 18 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 54, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 19 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
Claim(s) 6-7, 26-27, 41-42, & 61-62 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li-Qi as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of 3GPP836 (3GPP DRAFT; R1-1912836, 8 November 2019 (2019-11-08), XP051820208, document provided in the file 6/11/2024).
For Claim 6, Li-Qi teaches the method of claim 1, Li-Qi does not explicitly teach further comprising: receiving, at the UE from the first network entity, information indicating resource elements of the plurality of resource blocks that include data associated with the PRS.
However, 3GPP836 teaches further comprising: receiving, at the UE from the first network entity, information indicating resource elements of the plurality of resource blocks that include data associated with the PRS (3GPP836 Section 2.3 "The parameter to indicate RB-level density should be configured semi-statistically, similar to the comb density descried earlier. [. .. }Another view of defining RB-level comb is RB-level muting in the frequency domain. Muting is currently discussed for the time domain to decrease interference for other UEs. Similar approach can be applied to the frequency domain to decrease interference and improve spectrum efficiency."
Appendix: "Agreement: A bitmap for DL PRS muting is configured for a DL PRS Resource Set.").
3GPP836 and Li-Qi are analogous art because they are both related to PRS.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the PRS techniques of 3GPP836 with the system of Li-Qi to decrease interference and improve spectrum efficiency (3GPP836 Section 2.3).
For Claim 7, Li-Qi-3GPP836 teaches the method of claim 6, wherein the information includes a bitmap (3GPP836 Section 2.3).
For Claim(s) 26, 61, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 6 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 27, 62, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 7 as they claim the UE side and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 41, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 6 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
For Claim(s) 42, the claim(s) is/are substantially similar to claim 7 and therefore is/are rejected for the same reasoning set forth above.
Citation of Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is listed below, thank you:
i. US 20230179365 A1, POSITIONING REFERENCE SIGNAL WITH SUB-BAND-BASED COMB OFFSET
Please see PTO-892 for additional listing of relevant prior art made of record but not relied upon, thank you.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael Keller at (571)270-3863 or michael.keller@uspto.gov. If attempts to reach the examiner are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian Gillis can be reached on 571-272-7952.
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.
/MICHAEL A KELLER/
Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2446
Prosecution Insights