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
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement filed on 7/11/2024 has been considered.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 7/11/2024 are accepted.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 7 recites the limitation "the coarse reference database" in 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. There is no mention of a coarse reference database.
The term “at par” in claims 9 and 20 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “at par” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claims 8 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted steps are: how the “fallback” occurs to trigger the use of the “coarse reference database”. This appears to be an entire branch of logic that is not adequately described.
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 1-6, 10-17 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sendonaris et al. (US-2016/0109582 hereinafter, Sendonaris) in view of Yeh (US-2009/0021426).
Regarding claim 1, Sendonaris teaches a system for predicting precise location of a user equipment (UE) in a communication network, said system comprising:
one or more processors (Fig. 1 [130] “Processor”), said one or more processors operatively coupled to one or more UE associated with one or more users (Fig. 1 [120]), wherein the one or UE are communicatively coupled to one or network elements (cells) of the communication network (Fig. 1 [160]), wherein the one or more processors executes a set of executable instructions that are stored in a memory (Fig. 1 [130] “Data Source”), upon execution of which, the one or more processors causes the system to:
receive a first set of data packets, said first set of data packets pertaining to queries associated with location of a UE; (Fig. 10 [1001] and Page 9 [0102] “ At stage 1001, the request for user device location is sent from the LCS Client 1070 to the LCS Server/R-GMLC 1072.”)
receive a second set of data packets pertaining to a page request initiation response to the queries associated with the location of the UE; (Fig. 10 [1010] and Page 9 [0104] “If needed, the user device 1090 is paged and transitioned out of the idle state at stage 1010.”)
extract, from the UE, a first set of attributes based on the second set of data packets, the first set of attributes pertaining to a serving cell ID of the UE; (Fig. 10 [1012] note: part of the LCS messaging is the BSID)
based on the extracted attributes, collect, a satellite reference data associated with a probable area in which the UE is available; (Fig. 10 [1020] and Page 9 [0104] “If the RNC 1084 does not have current GPS ephemeris data, the RNC 1084 invokes the SAS 1082 through the Information Exchange Initiation Request at stage 1014. At stage 1015, the SAS 1082 returns GPS assistance data to the RNC 1084 through the Information Exchange Initiation Response.”)
identify from the satellite reference data, best visible satellites serving the probable area in which the UE is available; (Page 9 [0104-0105] “At stage 1015, the SAS 1082 returns GPS assistance data to the RNC 1084 through the Information Exchange Initiation Response. At stage 1016, a measurement control message is sent to the user device 1090 in order to request a location calculation. GPS Assistance data may also be included in this message. Stages 1017 through 1019 vary depending on whether the user device 1090 is operating in a UE-Based or a UE-Assisted positioning mode. If operating in UE-Based mode, the user device 1090 returns a measurement report message with its calculated position at stage 1017. If operating in UE-Assisted mode, the measurement report has GPS pseudorange measurements at stage 1017.”) and,
derive the exact latitude and longitude coordinates associated with the location of the UE from the identified best visible satellite coordinates. (Page 9 [0105] “If operating in UE-Based mode, the user device 1090 returns a measurement report message with its calculated position at stage 1017.” and “The SAS 1082 calculates the user device's position”)
Sendonaris differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting extract, a second set of attributes, based on the second set of data packets, the second set of attributes pertaining to a static coarse location data of the UE, and wherein the static coarse location contains mobile country codes (MCC) and mobile network codes (MNC) and corresponding location coordinates associated with the location of the UE.
In an analogous art, Yeh teaches a high-speed positioning system and method (Abstract) that includes extracting a set of first and second set of attributes including mobile country codes, mobile network codes, a serving cell ID (Pages 2-3 [0027] i.e. MCC, MNC and cell identity) and corresponding location coordinates associated with the location of the UE (Pages 2-3 [0027] “According to the connecting node information, corresponding user position information is acquired from the look-up table 491 of the mobile phone 49, which has previously stored therein mobile country code and corresponding user position information (e.g. GPS coordinates). For example, if the mobile country code of Taiwan is stored in the look-up table 491, the corresponding user position information indicates a representative GPS coordinate of Taiwan (e.g. a coordinate of the Taiwanese geographical center)”),
based on the first and second set of extracted attributes, collect, a satellite reference data associated with a probable area in which the UE is available; (Page 1 [0006] “the AGPS server 21 identifies the Cell ID of the base station 201, finds an area where the mobile phone 29 is located according to the Cell ID and associated tables of the base station 201, and then transmits almanac and ephemeris data corresponding to the satellites in the area to the mobile phone 29 via the mobile-phone network 20” and Page 3 [0028] “If the look-up table 491 contains partial contents of the connecting node information, the mobile country code (MCC) included in the connecting node information is retrieved and the user position information corresponding to the mobile country code (MCC) is obtained from the look-up table 491” and “According to the coordinate of the London Airport and the continuously updated satellite position data (e.g. almanac and ephemeris data), the AGPS server 31 generates a satellite position signal.”)
identify from the satellite reference data, best visible satellites serving the probable area in which the UE is available; (Page 3 [0028] “According to the coordinate of the London Airport and the continuously updated satellite position data (e.g. almanac and ephemeris data), the AGPS server 31 generates a satellite position signal. The satellite position signal is afterwards outputted to be transmitted to the satellite positioning module 492 of the mobile phone 49 through Internet 40 and the base station 401. According to the contents of the satellite position signal, the mobile phone 49 searches currently available GPS satellites to achieve the object of high-speed positioning.”) and
derive the exact latitude and longitude coordinates associated with the location of the UE from the identified best visible satellite coordinates. (Page 3 [0028] “According to the contents of the satellite position signal, the mobile phone 49 searches currently available GPS satellites to achieve the object of high-speed positioning. Meanwhile, a precise coordinate of the location of the mobile phone 49 is obtained.”)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious of one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Sendonaris after modifying it to incorporate the ability to utilize two sets of attributes to identify the best visible satellites serving the probable area of the UE of Yeh since it enables determining precise location information quickly. (Yeh Page 3 [0028])
Regarding claim 2, Sendonaris in view of Yet teaches wherein the system is configured to extract a third set of attributes from the first set of attributes (Sendonaris Fig. 5 [540]), the third set of attributes pertaining to a requested Quality of Service (QoS) and serving cell identity (ID) in a E-UTRAN Cell Global Identifier (ECGI) format. (Sendonaris Page 5 [0060] “the “Pseudorange RMS error” field may beset as the WAPS-based quality estimate divided by the Dilution of Precision (DOP) so that the confidence metric computed in the GPS server corresponds to the WAPS-based position quality.” and Page 6 [0067] “The network may use a full WAPS ID to look up WAPS beacon LLAs after the network determines the full WAPS ID based on Cell ID and the compressed WAPS ID of 6 bits” note: E-UTRAN is discussed as well, see Page 10 [0111-0112])
Regarding claim 3, Sendonaris in view of Yeh teaches wherein the system is configured to receive the third set of attributes from the UE. (Sendonaris Fig. 5 [530 -> 540] UE sends to the network/system)
Regarding claim 4, Sendonaris in view of Yeh teaches wherein the system is configured to send the location request to an Enhanced Serving Mobile Location Centre (ESMLC) (Sendonaris Page 22 [0204] “The MME selects an E-SMLC and sends the Location Request message to it”), wherein the ESMLC contains the requested QoS (Sendonaris Page 6 [0067], Page 7 [0080] “the WAPS position computation entity on the E-SMLC maps the cell ID to cell LLA using the base station almanac” and Page 22 [0204] “The MME selects an E-SMLC and sends the Location Request message to it. In this case, a position using WAPS is calculated by the user device and used to meet the requested location QoS”) and the serving cell id in the ECGI format as received from the UE. (Page 10 [0112])
Regarding claim 5, Sendonaris in view of Yeh teaches wherein the satellite reference data is obtained by the UE after sending a request for the satellite reference data to a predetermined data base comprising the satellite reference data of a plurality of UEs serving the probable area. (Sendonaris Fig. 10 [1014, 1015, 1016] and Page 9 [0104] “ If the RNC 1084 does not have current GPS ephemeris data, the RNC 1084 invokes the SAS 1082 through the Information Exchange Initiation Request at stage 1014. At stage 1015, the SAS 1082 returns GPS assistance data to the RNC 1084 through the Information Exchange Initiation Response. At stage 1016, a measurement control message is sent to the user device 1090 in order to request a location calculation. GPS Assistance data may also be included in this message.”)
Regarding claim 6, Sendonaris in view of Yeh teaches wherein the system is configured to consider the satellite reference data corresponding to the UE that provides a predetermined GNSS satellite signal for computing location. (Sendonaris Page 9 [0104-0105] “At stage 1016, a measurement control message is sent to the user device 1090 in order to request a location calculation. GPS Assistance data may also be included in this message. Stages 1017 through 1019 vary depending on whether the user device 1090 is operating in a UE-Based or a UE-Assisted positioning mode. If operating in UE-Based mode, the user device 1090 returns a measurement report message with its calculated position at stage 1017. If operating in UE-Assisted mode, the measurement report has GPS pseudorange measurements at stage 1017”)
Regarding claim 10, Sendonaris in view of Yeh teaches wherein the system is configured to determine respective location coordinates of the UE based on the serving MCC and MNC values (Yeh Pages 2-3 [0027] “Exemplary connecting node information includes but is not limited to mobile country code (MCC), mobile network code (MNC), cell identity and the like. According to the connecting node information, corresponding user position information is acquired from the look-up table 491 of the mobile phone 49, which has previously stored therein mobile country code and corresponding user position information (e.g. GPS coordinates)”), wherein the location coordinates is the latitude and longitude values of approximate centroid of the said MCC and MNC geography. (Yeh Pages 2-3 [0027] “if the mobile country code of Taiwan is stored in the look-up table 491, the corresponding user position information indicates a representative GPS coordinate of Taiwan (e.g. a coordinate of the Taiwanese geographical center)”)
Regarding claims 11 and 12, the limitations of claim 11 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claim 1.
Regarding claims 13-17, the limitations of claims 13-17 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claims 2-6.
Regarding claim 21, the limitations of claim 21 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claim 10.
Claims 7-9 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sendonaris in view of Yeh as applied to claims 1 and 12 above, and further in view of Gupta et al. (US-2018/0063813 hereinafter, Gupta).
Regarding claim 7, Sendonaris in view of Yeh teaches the limitations of claim 1 above, but differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting wherein the system is further configured to store the static coarse location in the coarse reference database which contains ECGI value, latitude and longitude values of the UE.
In an analogous art, Gupta teaches a method and system for improved paging (Abstract) that includes a location database that contains the UE’s last known location as an ECGI and geographic coordinates. (Page 4 [0045])
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious of one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Sendonaris in view of Yeh after modifying it to incorporate the ability to have a location database that contains a UE’s last location of Gupta since keeping the last location of a UE enables being able to page the UE in the geographical region of the UE’s last known location. (Gupta Page 1 [0006])
Regarding claim 8, Sendonaris in view of Yeh and Gupta teaches the limitations of claim 8 in the structure disclosed in claim 7. It is noted that claim 8 is directed to an intended use of the system and it is not clear there is a structural difference being claimed.
Regarding claim 9, Sendonaris in view of Yeh and Gupta teaches the limitations of claim 9 in the structure disclosed in claim 7. It is noted that claim 9 is directed to an intended use of the system and it is not clear there is a structural difference being claimed. See additionally section 7 above.
Regarding claims 18-20, the limitations of claims 18-20 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claim 7-9.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US-2007/0182631 to Berlinsky et al discloses the use of Internet information for generating assisted global positioning system to facilitate faster GPS positioning.
US-2010/0093376 to del Castillo et al. discloses a method and system for receiving GNSS location assistance data from a network location server to assist an WCDMA handset to determine location from the GNSS.
US-8,195,202 to Hansson which discloses determining and then providing assisted global positioning information to a mobile device.
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/Matthew C Sams/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646
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