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
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.
Claim(s) 1-9, 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MIAO et al. (US Pub No. 2023/0194648) in view of Park et al. (US Pub No. 2011/0270519).
Claim 1, MIAO discloses a method for estimating a direction from a first user equipment (UE) (See Fig. 10, UE1) to a second UE (Fig. 10, UE2), the first UE and the second UE being connectable to a communications network (par [0223, 0225] UE1 and UE2 connected to the same serving base station, for example, the base station connected to the UE1 is eNB1, and the base station connected to the UE2 is eNB2), the method comprising the steps of: obtaining, based on a first sidelink position determination signal (SL-PDS) (par [0115, 0147] applied to cellular links, and can also be applied to links between devices, such as D2D links. The D2D link or V2X link may also be referred to as sidelink, for example UE1 obtains the resource configuration information of the positioning reference signal PRS1 of the UE1 in the sidelink through the eNB1. The UE2 obtains the resource configuration information of the positioning reference signal PRS2 of the UE2 in the sidelink through the eNB2) communicated on a sidelink of the communications network between the first UE and the second UE, a first estimated distance between the first UE and the second UE (par [0206-0208, 0212] UE1 that determine the relative distance between UE2 relative to the UE1 itself according to the preset sending moment and the moment of receiving the PRS2 wherein which the terminal performs positioning based on the sidelink positioning reference signal); obtaining, based on a second position determination signal (PDS)communicated between the first UE and a first assist node associated with the communications network, a second estimated distance between the first UE and the first assist node (par [0231, 0238] the base station eNB1 determines the relative distance and direction angle between UE1 wherein eNB1 determines the relative position of UE1 with respect to eNB1 according to PRS3); obtaining, based on a third PDS communicated between the second UE and the first assist node, a third estimated distance between the second UE and the first assist node (par [2030-2031, 0233, 2038] the base station eNB1 determines the relative distance and direction angle between UE1 wherein eNB1 determines the relative position of UE1 with respect to eNB1 according to PRS3, and eNB2 determines the relative distance and direction angle between UE2).
However, MIAO does not discloses estimating, the direction from the first UE to the second UE based on the first, second and third estimated distance. Park et al. discloses estimating, the direction from the first UE to the second UE based on the first, second and third estimated distance (See Fig. 4, and par [0063-0067] estimate a relative direction of second and third estimated distance based on for example, a moving distance and a moving direction of the terminal 410. For example, the terminal 410 may estimate a distance from an AP (1) 430 and an AP (2) 440 that correspond to reference devices at predetermined time intervals, the terminal 410 from a position x(1) to a position x(2), a distance between the position x(1) and the AP (1) 430, a distance between the position x(1) and the AP (2) 440, a distance between the position x(2) and the AP (1) 430, and a distance between the position x(2) and the AP (2) 440). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide of Park et al. to the system of MIAO in order to estimate relative distance to collecting route information of the device.
Claim 2, MIAO further discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises: configuring, at least one of the first UE or the second UE, an SL-PDS configuration configuring the SL-PDS (See Fig. 6, and par [0204-0205] disclosed steps 601, and 602).
Claim 3, MIAO further discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the SL-PDS configuration comprises at least one of: a transmission timing of the SL-PDS, a time-frequency resource allocated by the communications network to the SL- PDS, a transmit power of the SL-PDS, a beam configuration of the SL-PDS, a sequence design of the SL-PDS, at least one reporting item for reporting an exchange of the SL-PDS between the first UE and the second UE, a point in time at which the first SL-PDS is to be sent, or a time interval within which the first SL-PDS is to be sent (See Fig. 11, and par [0170, 0225-0226] disclosed steps 1100, and step 1101).
Claim 4, MIAO further discloses the method of claim 1 wherein the step of obtaining the first estimated distance comprises: triggering an exchange of the first SL-PDS between the second UE and the first UE on a first sidelink communication channel established between the first UE and the second UE on the sidelink of the communications network (See Fig. 11, steps 1101, step 1103).
Claim 5, MIAO further discloses the method of claim 1 wherein the step of obtaining the first estimated distance comprises: triggering an exchange of the first SL-PDS between the second UE and the first UE using a broadcast transmission of at least one of the first UE or the second UE (See Fig. 11, step 1100, and step 1104).
Claim 6, MIAO further discloses the method of claim 1 wherein the step of obtaining the first estimated distance comprises: estimating the first estimated distance based on a receive property of the first SL- PDS exchanged between the second UE and the first UE (par [0194-0195] Step 901: the UE1 receives a PRS2 and the sending time information sent by the UE2).
Claim 7, MIAO further discloses the method of wherein the receive property comprises at least one of a received signal strength, a propagation time, an angle-of-departure or an angle-of-arrival (par [0031, 0062] an Angle of Arrival of the second positioning signal and the relative distance of the second terminal relative to the first terminal).
Claim 8, MIAO further discloses the method of claim 1 wherein the steps of obtaining the second estimated distance and the third estimated distance comprise: triggering an exchange of the second PDS between the first UE and the first assist node and triggering an exchange of the third PDS between the second UE and the first assist node (See Fig. 11, step 1100, and step 1104, par [2030-2031, 0233, 2038] the base station eNB1 determines the relative distance and direction angle between UE1 wherein eNB1 determines the relative position of UE1 with respect to eNB1 according to PRS3).
Claim 9, MIAO further discloses the method of claim 8, wherein the exchange of the second PDS between the first UE and the first assist node and the exchange of the third PDS between the second UE and the first assist node is on the sidelink of the communications network, wherein the second and the third PDS are respectively an SL-PDS; wherein the first assist node is a first assist UE (par [0223, 0225] the eNB1 may also directly determine the absolute positions of the two terminals and send the absolute position information of the two terminals to the UE1 and UE2, and the UE1 and UE2 determine the relative distance and the relative direction angle).
Claim 11, MIAO further discloses the method of claim 1 wherein the steps of obtaining the second and the third estimated distances comprise: estimating the second estimated distance based on a receive property of the second PDS exchanged between the assist node and the first UE; and estimating the third estimated distance based on a receive property of the third PDS exchanged between the second UE and the first assist node (See Fig. 11, step 1100, and step 1104, par [2030-2031, 0233, 2038] the base station eNB1 determines the relative distance and direction angle between UE1 wherein eNB1 determines the relative position of UE1 with respect to eNB1 according to PRS3).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10, 12-20 are 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 prior art of MIAO et al. (US Pub No. 2023/0194648), and Park et al. (US Pub No. 2011/0270519) either alone or in combination do not disclose.
Claim 10, the method of claim 9, wherein the exchange of the second and third PDS: is on a second and third sidelink communication channel established on the sidelink of the communications network between the first UE and the first assist UE and the second UE and the first assist UE, respectively; or uses broadcast transmissions on the sidelink.
Claim 12, the method of claim 1 further comprising the step of: obtaining, based on a fourth PDS, a fourth estimated distance between the first UE and a second assist node; and obtaining, based on a fifth PDS, a fifth estimated distance between the second UE and the second assist node, wherein estimating the direction from the first UE to the second UE is further based on the fourth estimated distance and the fifth estimated distance.
Claim 14, the method of claim 1 further comprising the step of triggering an exchange of at least one of the first SL-PDS, the second PDS or the third PDS, wherein the step of triggering includes providing, to at least one of the first UE, the second UE or the assist node, a trigger message, the trigger message defining an originator and a recipient of the at least one of the first SL-PDS or the second and third PDS.
Conclusion
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/PHUOC H DOAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646
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