Detailed Action
1. The Office Action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed on 09/16/2024. In virtue of this communication, claims 33-45 are currently pending in this Office Action.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
3. Applicant’s claim for benefit of entering national stage 371 of application which claims benefits of provisional application as ADS filed on 09/16/2024 under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) in accordance with 37 CFR 1.78 is acknowledged.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Claims 33-45 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shrestha Pub. No.: US 2021/0281520 A1 in view of Ghanbarinejad et al. Pub. No.: US 2023/0199685 A1.
Claim 33
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Shrestha discloses a method (fig. 1-18 for adjusting timing in non-terrestrial wireless communications based on round trip delay measured) of supporting multiple cell round trip time (multi-RTT) measurements (RTD in 420 in fig. 4, RTD and RTT are interchangeable in most of the situations and later on, evidence for multi-RTT is provided) involving a user equipment (UE) (UE 115-b in fig. 4), where at least one of the multiple cells is associated with a non-terrestrial network (NTN) node (120-a in fig. 1-2), wherein the NTN node comprises a gNodeB (gNB) capable of NTN operation (gNB in fig. 1 for 105-b in fig. 4 and 105-c in fig. 5), the method performed by the NTN node and comprising:
determining propagation delay information (RTD in fig. 4) associated with one or both of a feeder link between the NTN node and a ground station (105-a in fig. 2 and fig. 10-13), or a service link between the NTN node and the UE (see propagation delay in 1405-1410 in fig. 14, 1510 in fig. 15, 1515 in fig. 15).
Although Shrestha does not disclose: “sending the propagation delay information to a location server, for determination of multi-RTT assistance data”, the claim limitation is considered obvious by the following rationales.
In particular, Ghanbarinejad teaches UE for transmitting RRC location measurement indication (12 in fig. 2) and RRC UL location transfer after DL PRS measurement (15-1 in fig. 2; par. 0054, the UE measures the UE Rx-Tx measurements used to determine the RTT at the positioning server and the location estimate accuracy of the multi-RTT positioning, see LMF in fig. 1 & 6 for a location server or a positioning server configured with a location management function LMF).
Furthermore, Ghanbarinejad teaches NTN node comprising a gNodeB, gNB (see gNB in fig. 11-12, and see fig. 14-15 for satellite comprising gNB).
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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 timing adjustment in non-terrestrial wireless communications of Shrestha by providing positioning in a non-terrestrial network as taught in Ghanbarinejad. Such a modification would have provided positioning in a non-terrestrial network NTN to location accurately a user equipment so that the wireless communication resources would not be wasted for moving UE at high speeds as suggested in par. 0001-0004 of Ghanbarinejad.
Claim 34
Shrestha, in view of Ghanbarinejad, discloses the method according to claim 33, wherein the location server is a node in a core network (CN) of a wireless communication network that includes the NTN and further includes one or more terrestrial network nodes that provide at least one other cell of the multiple cells (Shrestha, core network 130 in fig. 1 and par. 0045, par. 0051-0052 for eNBs, gNBs, relay base stations and see NTN for fig. 1-5; Ghanbarinejad, location servers and UE connected to the NTN for wireless communications in par. 0036 & 0045 and see LMF for fig. 2 & 5-6 in a core network with gNB; hence, the combined prior art reads on the claim).
Claim 35
Shrestha, in view of Ghanbarinejad, discloses the method according to claim 33, wherein the propagation delay information indicates a service-link propagation delay and/or a feeder-link propagation delay (Shrestha, service link and feeder link in fig. 2 for RTD in fig. 4 and see propagation delays in fig. 14-18; Ghanbarinejad, multi-RTT in par. 054 and Table T1-2 in par. 0058; accordingly, the combined prior art renders the claim obvious).
Claim 36
Shrestha, in view of Ghanbarinejad, discloses the method according to claim 33, wherein the propagation delay information comprises one or more timing advance (TA) offsets used by the UE with respect to the NTN node (Shrestha, timing advance in par. 0078-0080), the one or more TA offsets bearing on downlink and uplink frame timing in the UE (Shrestha, timing advance offset in Table in par. 0084; Ghanbarinejad, offset added to the timing delay in par. 0132; and hence, the combined prior art meets the claim requirement).
Claim 37
Shrestha, in view of Ghanbarinejad, discloses the method according to claim 33, wherein the NTN node is a base station implemented in a satellite or an unmanned aerial system (UAS) (Shrestha, satellite in fig. 1-2 & 4-5;Ghanbarinejad, UAV or HAPS in par. 0003; accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the combined prior art to perform equally well to the claim, see evidence for UAS in fig. 13 and par. 0144 of Duan et al. Pub. No.: US 2023/0179295 A1).
Claim 38
Shrestha, in view of Ghanbarinejad, discloses the method according to claim 33, further comprising receiving the multi-RTT assistance data from the location server (Shrestha, RTD in fig. 4; Ghanbarinejad, multi-RTT as positioning assistance in fig. 2 and par. 0054 and see Tables 1-2 in par. 0058 for multi-RTT) and performing at least one of:
performing measurements on one or more uplink (UL) signals received at the NTN node from the UE, according to the multi-RTT assistance data (Shrestha, RTD in fig. 4-5 and see propagation delay measurement for uplink, downlink, service link and feeder link in fig. 14-18; Ghanbarinejad, RRC UL information transfer in step 15-1 in fig. 2 and see Tables 1-2 for multi-RTT for DL and UL in par. 0058); and
passing the multi-RTT assistance data to the UE, for use by the UE in performing one or more downlink (DL) measurements on signals received at the UE from the NTN node (Shrestha, RTD in fig. 4-5 and see propagation delay measurement in uplink, downlink, service link and feeder link in fig. 14-18; Ghanbarinejad, RRC DL information transfer in step 10-1 in fig. 2 and see Tables 1-2 in par. 0058 for DL multi-RTT and UL multi-RTT; and thus, the combined prior art meets the claim condition).
Claim 39
Shrestha, in view of Ghanbarinejad, discloses the method according to claim 33, further comprising controlling a transmission timing of a downlink (DL) positioning reference signal (PRS) to be transmitted by the NTN node for the UE, according to the multi-RTT assistance data (Shrestha, fig. 4-5 and 14-18; Ghanbarinejad, DL PRS and multi-RTT in Tables 1 in par. 0058 and see fig. 1-2; accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the combined prior art to perform equally well to the claim, see MPEP 2143, KSR Exemplary Rationale F).
Claim 40
Claim 40 is NTN node claim corresponding to method claim 33. All of the limitations in claim 40 are found reciting the structures of the same scopes of the respective limitations of claim 33. Accordingly, claim 40 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection of claim 33 set forth above. Additionally, Shrestha discloses a non-terrestrial network (NTN) node (120-a or 105-1 in fig. 2 and see fig. 4-5 as well and detailed structures in fig. 10-13 and par. 0153) comprising: communication interface circuitry (transceiver 1320 and antenna 1325 in fig. 13); and processing circuitry (processor 1340 in fig. 13).
Claim 41
Shrestha discloses a method (fig. 1-18 for adjusting timing in non-terrestrial wireless communications based on round trip delay measured) of supporting multiple cell round trip time (multi-RTT) measurements (RTD in 420 in fig. 4) involving a user equipment (UE) (UE 115-b in fig. 4), where at least one of the multiple cells is associated with a non-terrestrial network (NTN) node (120-a in fig. 1-2), wherein the NTN node comprises a gNodeB (gNB) (gNB in fig. 1 for 105-b in fig. 4 and 105-c in fig. 5) configured for NTN operation, the method performed by a network server (a network server in par. 0105 & 0139) and comprising:
receiving propagation delay information associated with one or both of a feeder link between the NTN node and a ground station, or a service link between the NTN node and the UE (see fig. 2 and RTD in fig. 4 and propagation delay in 1405-1410 in fig. 14, 1510 in fig. 15, 1515 in fig. 15).
Although Shrestha does not disclose: “a location server; determining multi-RTT assistance data for the NTN node or the UE or both; and sending the multi-RTT assistance data to the NTN node or the UE or both”, the claim limitations are considered obvious by the following rationales.
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Firstly, to address the obviousness of the claim limitation “a location server; determining multi-RTT assistance data for the NTN node or the UE or both”, recall that Shrestha discloses estimating RTD and RTD variation and sending RTD information to UE (420-425 in fig. 4). In fact, this teaching could have rendered the address claim limitation obvious. In particular, Ghanbarinejad teaches a location server (LMF in fig. 2 and LMF-LCS in fig. 5 and see details in fig. 23); and determining multi-RTT positioning (par. 0054 and Tables 1-2 in par. 0058).
Secondly, to consider the obviousness of the claim limitation “sending the multi-RTT assistance data to the NTN node or the UE or both”, recall that Shrestha teaches sending RTD information to UE (420-452 in fig. 4). In particular, Ghanbarinejad teaches LMF for sending LPP assistance data to UE via AMF and gNB (fig. 2) and UE for transmitting RRC location measurement indication (12 in fig. 2), and RRC UL location transfer after DL PRS measurement (15-1 in fig. 2; par. 0054, the UE measures the UE Rx-Tx measurements used to determine the RTT at the positioning server and the location estimate accuracy of the multi-RTT positioning, see LMF in fig. 1 & 6 for a location server or a positioning server configured with a location management function LMF).
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 timing adjustment in non-terrestrial wireless communications of Shrestha by providing positioning in a non-terrestrial network as taught in Ghanbarinejad. Such a modification would have provided positioning in a non-terrestrial network NTN to location accurately a user equipment so that the wireless communication resources would not be wasted for moving UE at high speeds as suggested in par. 0001-0004 of Ghanbarinejad.
Claim 42
Shrestha, in view of Ghanbarinejad, discloses the method according to claim 41, wherein the location server is a node in a core network (CN) of a wireless communication network that includes the NTN and further includes one or more terrestrial network nodes that provide at least one other cell of the multiple cells (Shrestha, core network 130 in fig. 1 and par. 0045, par. 0051-0052 for eNBs, gNBs, relay base stations and see NTN for fig. 1-5; Ghanbarinejad, location servers and UE connected to the NTN for wireless communications in par. 0036 & 0045 and see LMF for fig. 2 & 5-6 in a core network with gNB; hence, the combined prior art reads on the claim).
Claim 43
Shrestha, in view of Ghanbarinejad, discloses the method according to claim 41, wherein the propagation delay information indicates a service-link propagation delay and/or a feeder-link propagation delay (Shrestha, service link and feeder link in fig. 2 for RTD in fig. 4 and see propagation delays in fig. 14-18; Ghanbarinejad, multi-RTT in par. 054 and Table T1-2 in par. 0058; accordingly, the combined prior art renders the claim obvious).
Claim 44
Shrestha, in view of Ghanbarinejad, discloses the method according to 41, wherein the propagation delay information comprises one or more timing advance (TA) offsets used by the UE with respect to the NTN node (Shrestha, timing advance in par. 0078-0080), the one or more TA offsets bearing on downlink and uplink frame timing in the UE (Shrestha, timing advance offset in Table in par. 0084; Ghanbarinejad, offset added to the timing delay in par. 0132; and hence, the combined prior art meets the claim requirement).
Claim 45
Claim 45 is a server claim corresponding to method claim 41. All of the limitations in claim 45 are found reciting the structures of the same scopes of the respective limitations of claim 41. Accordingly, claim 45 can be considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection of claim 41 set forth above. Additionally, Ghanbarinejad discloses a location server (fig. 23) comprising: communication interface circuitry (receiver 2310, transmitter 2312 and antenna 2316 in fig. 23); and processing circuitry (processor 2306 in fig. 23).
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.
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/SAN HTUN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643
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