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 .
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, 2 and 4-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MONOLAKOS et al PG PUB 2026/0163699 in view of YUAN et al PG PUB 2026/0067840.
Re Claims 1, 13, MONOLAKOS et al teaches a UE (a transceiver, memory, and controller) receiving in a first cell a set of positioning SRS configuration with IEs (RRC message) for positioning SRS in RRC inactive state [0169] wherein the IEs (fields) includes a validity area (a positioning area), positioning SRS configuration ID and Area-ID-cell list indicating a one or more cells where the positioning SRS configuration is valid [0182 0184]; the UE performing transitioning to RRC inactive state and cell reselection to a second cell [0184 0208]; the UE further receiving an SRS activation message that includes SRS information RSRP threshold [0174]; by comparing the RSRP threshold of downlink pathloss with a RSRP of downlink pathloss (a stored RSRP) of the second cell indicates whether the positioning SRS area satisfies the RSRP threshold to ascertain whether the positioning SRS area needs updating [0190].
MONOLAKOS et al fails to explicitly teach “a first timing advance based on a downlink timing difference; and performing by the terminal a positioning SRS transmission in the second cell based on: the first timing advance and a positioning SRS configuration,”.
However, YUAN et al teaches in figure 4, obtaining a first TA based on a downlink timing difference [0110] and figure 3, S302 teaches the terminal device sending and SRS based on the first TA [0134], S303 teaches the terminal device receiving a TA adjustment command to select/use a beam/area associated with the SRS. By combining the teachings, TA determination in MONOLAKOS et al can be modified to include the TA adjustment in YUAN et al determine whether the positioning SRS area requires updating. One skilled in the art would have been motivated to have determined “the updating, the second to a positively SRS area” based on the TA adjustment in YUAN to ascertain whether the positioning SRS configuration is valid. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one skilled to have combined the teachings
Re Claim 2, YUAN teaches in figure 3, receiving the TA adjustment (the second timing advance) from the second cell indicating a uplink transmission time for the SRS transmission [0315] wherein the TA adjustment can be send via SIB.
Re Claims 4, 7, 8, YUAN et al teaches the timing difference is determined based on downlink frame boundary of the second and downlink frame boundary of the first cell (the previous cell) [See figure 4] wherein the positioning SRS configuration comprised in the RRC message in the first cell [0169].
Re Claim 5, MONOLAKOS et al teaches the UE receiving the RSRP threshold (a specific threshold) [0164] for the increase/decrease of RSRP for time alignment validation wherein when the difference between the stored RSRP of downlink pathloss reference and current RSRP of downlink pathloss reference is above the threshold, the positioning SRS transmission is stopped [0190: conditional transmission of SRS].
Re Claims 6, 9, MONOLAKOS et al teaches the IE includes “inactivePosSRS-RSRP-changeThreshold” parameter in RRC inactive state [0164], SRS power and PL pathloss estimate [0162].
Re Claim 10, MONOLAKOS et al teaches PL indicates the SSB information or index [0168].
Re Claims 11, 12, MONOLAKOS et al teaches the positioning SRS transmission is performed, Area-ID-cell list (positioning SRS area) indicating a one or more cells where the positioning SRS configuration is determined [0182 0184] with transmission power for the positioning SRS resource set [0162].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3 is 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 following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Re Claim 3, prior art fails to teach the amount of time advice is determined as claimed.
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/ANDREW LEE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475
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