Detailed Action
1. This Office Action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 07/27/2026. In virtue of this communication, claims 1, 4-5, 8-9, 12-13 and 16 are currently pending in this Office Action.
Response to Arguments
2. In Remarks, applicant mainly argues for the amended claim limitations that the previously applied prior art does not anticipate the claim limitations as a whole.
In fact, applicant should have argued for anticipation without cooperating or amending the dependent claim limitations into the independent claim. When claims 2-3 are amended into claim 1, the amended limitations of claim 1 could be construed into a certain way. “One or more parameters” are amended to previous claim 1 in a way that claim now requires that the report not only contains “one parameter” but also exact “three parameters” in the amended claim limitation “a report comprising the carrier phase, the corresponding uncertainty associated with the corresponding frequency, and a resolution of the corresponding uncertainty”. In other words, the reasonable interpretation to the amended claim 1, as a whole, could be entirely different and the previously reasonable interpretation may no longer be applicable as amended. Hence, determination for patentability is treated rather than response to the argument for anticipation.
Additionally, if reasonably interpretation were given to claim 4, the claim interpretation must be construed with the previous claims 1-3 as a whole. It means that limitations to be reasonably interpreted for claim 4 are now claims 1 + 2 + 3 + 4, while in the previous rejection, claim could be reasonably interpreted as the limitations form claims 1 + 4 only. To advance the prosecution, examiner may properly apply a new 103 rejection [if needed] in response to the applicant’s combination of limitation of independent and dependent claims together in a certain way.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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 of this title, 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.
4. 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.
5. Claims 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bao et al. Pub. No.: US 2022/0053411 A1 in view of Ren et al. Pub. No.: US 2023/0180040 A1.
Claim 1
Bao discloses a method (fig. 10 depicts PRS adjustments based on repetitive signal performance) of wireless communication, comprising:
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receiving, by a wireless device (UE 500 in fig. 10) from a network node (network entity NE 600 in fig. 10), a position reference signal (at 1022 in fig. 10 in which UE receives DL-PRS from NE) that corresponds to a plurality of carriers (DL PRS positioning frequency layer in par. 0102), wherein each of the plurality of carriers is associated with a corresponding frequency (par. 0102, DL PRS subcarrier and 12 consecutive subcarriers and PRS positioning frequency layer, i.e., simply a frequency layer, and DL PRS point A parameter defines a frequency of a reference resource block and see par. 0106 for frequency layers of component carriers);
measuring one or more parameters of the position reference signal (1030-1032 in fig. 10, measure reports means that UE has measured DL-PRS in 1022 as explained in par. 0128 link measurement, link quality measurements, i.e., parameters, and see PRS parameters in par. 0126 such as periodicity offset, ON time, OFF time, comb size), wherein the one or more parameters comprises a carrier phase (carrier phase in par. 0061) and a corresponding uncertainty associated with each of the carrier frequencies (uncertainty in par. 0080 & 0110 for PRS configuration parameters, and see par. 0102 & 0106 for PRS corresponding to frequency layers of component carries); and
transmitting a report comprising the corresponding uncertainty associated with the corresponding frequency and a resolution of the corresponding uncertainty (measurement report in step 1030 in fig. 10, multiple measurement reports in 1032 & 1074 of fig. 10 as explained in par. 0129 includes PRS patter degradation, i.e., uncertainty, see par. 0102 & 0106 for frequency layers associated to PRS, and reconfiguration message in 1062 of fig. 10 could be reasonably interpreted as resolution unless claim specifically recite what are required to be uncertainty and the resolution, see MPEP 2111).
Although Bao does not explicitly disclose: “a report comprising the carrier phase, the corresponding uncertainty associated with the corresponding frequency, and a resolution of the corresponding uncertainty”, the claim limitations are considered obvious by the following rationales.
Initially, Boa discloses location measurement including carrier phase (par. 0061), PRS measurement reports including degradation (fig. 8 & 10, degradation), and reconfiguration message (fig. 10 and par. 0129). In accordance with MPEP 2111, uncertainty could be reasonably interpreted as degradation and similarly, resolution as reconfiguration. With these teaching from Boa, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the measurement report to include, phase value, uncertainty and resolution. Evidence for such report could be seen in Ben. In particular, Ben teaches reporting the first phase measurement quantity (103 in fig. 1 and par. 0196, the integer ambiguity and the whole-cycle phase value, see par. 0199 & 0280 for phase measurement corresponding to an error value, an error resolution wherein error value refers to the optimal estimation value of uncertainty; additionally, see calculating the report value for resolution of integer ambiguity in par. 0264-0279).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify positioning reference signal of Bao by providing information reporting as taught in Ren. Such a modification would have provided a terminal to report the phase measurement to a base station so that the positioning could be less delay with higher accuracy as suggested in par. 0002-0006 of Ren.
Claim 4
Bao, in view of Ren, discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the position reference signal (PRS) is a downlink (DL) PRS (Bao, DL PRS in 1022 in fig. 10; Ren, DL-PRS in fig. 2; and thus, the combined prior art reads on the claim).
Claim 5
Bao discloses a method (fig. 10 depict for PRS adjustment) of wireless communication, comprising:
transmitting, by a network node (network entity 600 in fig. 10) to a wireless device (UE 500 in fig. 10), a position reference signal (in 1022, network entity sends DL-PRS to UE) that corresponds to a plurality of carriers (DL PRS positioning frequency layer in par. 0102), wherein each of the plurality of carriers is associated with a corresponding frequency (par. 0102, DL PRS subcarrier and 12 consecutive subcarriers and PRS positioning frequency layer, i.e., simply a frequency layer, and DL PRS point A parameter defines a frequency of a reference resource block and see par. 0106 for frequency layers of component carriers); and
receiving, from the wireless device, a report (measurement report in 1032 of fig. 10) comprising one or more parameters of the position reference signal (1030-1032 in fig. 10, measure reports means that UE has measured DL-PRS in 1022 as explained in par. 0128 link measurement, link quality measurements, i.e., parameters, and see PRS parameters in par. 0126 such as periodicity offset, ON time, OFF time, comb size), wherein the one or more parameters comprises the corresponding uncertainty associated with the corresponding frequency and a resolution of the corresponding uncertainty (measurement report in step 1030 in fig. 10, multiple measurement reports in 1032 & 1074 of fig. 10 as explained in par. 0129 includes PRS patter degradation, i.e., uncertainty, see par. 0102 & 0106 for frequency layers associated to PRS, and reconfiguration message in 1062 of fig. 10 could be reasonably interpreted as resolution unless claim specifically recite what are required to be uncertainty and the resolution, see MPEP 2111).
Although Bao does not explicitly disclose: “wherein the one or more parameters comprises a carrier phase, a corresponding uncertainty associated with the corresponding frequency, and a resolution of the corresponding uncertainty”, the claim limitations are considered obvious by the following rationales.
Initially, Boa discloses location measurement including carrier phase (par. 0061), PRS measurement reports including degradation (fig. 8 & 10, degradation), and reconfiguration message (fig. 10 and par. 0129). In accordance with MPEP 2111, uncertainty could be reasonably interpreted as degradation and similarly, resolution as reconfiguration. With these teaching from Boa, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the measurement report to include, phase value, uncertainty and resolution. Evidence for such report could be seen in Ben. In particular, Ben teaches reporting the first phase measurement quantity (103 in fig. 1 and par. 0196, the integer ambiguity and the whole-cycle phase value, see par. 0199 & 0280 for phase measurement corresponding to an error value, an error resolution wherein error value refers to the optimal estimation value of uncertainty; additionally, see calculating the report value for resolution of integer ambiguity in par. 0264-0279).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify positioning reference signal of Bao by providing information reporting as taught in Ren. Such a modification would have provided a terminal to report the phase measurement to a base station so that the positioning could be less delayed with higher accuracy as suggested in par. 0002-0006 of Ren.
Claim 8
Bao, in view of Ren, discloses the method of claim 5, wherein the position reference signal (PRS) is a downlink (DL) PRS (Bao, DL PRS in 1022 in fig. 10; Ren, DL-PRS in fig. 2; and thus, the combined prior art reads on the claim).
Claim 9 and 12
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Claims 9 and 12 are apparatus claims corresponding to method claims 1 and 4. All of the limitations in claims 9 and 12 are reciting the structures for the same scope of the respective limitations of claims 1 and 4. Accordingly, claims 9 and 12 are considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection of claims 1 and 4 respectively set forth above. Additionally, Bao teaches an apparatus for wireless communication comprising (UE in fig. 5 & 10): one or more processors, implemented in a wireless device (process 510 in UE of fig. 5).
Claim 13 and 16
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Claims 13 and 16 are apparatus claims corresponding to method claims 5 and 8. All of the limitations in claims 13 and 16 are reciting the structures for the same scope of the respective limitations of claims 5 and 8. Accordingly, claims 13 and 16 are considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection of claims 5 and 8 respectively set forth above. Additionally, Bao teaches an apparatus for wireless communication comprising (NE in fig. 6 & 10): one or more processors, implemented in a network node (process 610 in NE of fig. 6 and alternatively, see fig. 3-4).
Conclusion
6. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contact Information
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAN HTUN whose telephone number is (571)270-3190. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 7 AM - 5 PM.
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, Jinsong Hu can be reached on 5712723965. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SAN HTUN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643
Prosecution Insights