DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 6, 8-14, 16-18, 24, 26-32, and 34-38 have been cancelled.
Status of Claims
2. This Office Action is in response to the application filed on 10/18/2022. Claims 1-5, 7, 15, 19-23, 25, 33, and 39-42 are presently pending and are presented for examination.
3. 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 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
4. 35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 41-42 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. A computer readable medium typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se, particularly when the specification is silent. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter. It is suggested that the claims be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 by adding the limitation “non-transitory” to the claim. Such an amendment would typically not raise the issue of new matter, even when the specification is silent because the broadest reasonable interpretation relies on the ordinary and customary meaning that includes signals per se.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
5. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-5, 7, 15, 19-23, 25, 33, and 39-42 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Bao et al. (US 2022/0046744 A1).
For claim 1 Bao teaches a positioning signal transmission method, performed by a terminal (paragraph 6 “a method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE) configured to operate in discontinuous reception (DRX) mode includes switching to DRX active time of a DRX cycle of the DRX mode”), and comprising:
determining one or more of an active duration or an inactive duration of a discontinuous reception DRX configuration (paragraph 6 “DRX ON and DRX OFF of DRX cycle”, paragraph 148 “DRX ON time of DL-PRS and DRX OFF time”);
transmitting of a positioning signal at a time domain resource position corresponding to the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the DRX configuration (paragraph 6 “transmitting one or more uplink positioning reference signal (UL-PRS) resources of an UL-PRS occasion based on the UL-PRS occasion at least partially overlapping DRX OFF time of the DRX cycle after the DRX active time”).
For claim 2 Bao teaches the method, wherein the determining the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the DRX configuration comprises:
in response to the terminal and an access network device being in a connected state, receiving first indication information, wherein the first indication information comprises a first information field (paragraph 137 “a UE may implement discontinuous reception (DRX) and/or connected-mode discontinuous reception (CDRX) techniques. DRX and CDRX are mechanisms in which a UE goes into a "sleep" mode for scheduled periods of time and "wakes up" for other periods of time. During the wake, or active, periods, the UE checks to see if there is any data coming from the network, and if there is not, goes back into sleep mode”); and
determining the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the terminal with the DRX configuration based on the first information field (paragraph 139 “the network (e.g., serving cell) can configure the UE with the DRX/CDRX timing using an RRC Connection Reconfiguration message (for CDRX) or an RRC Connection Setup message (for DRX). The network can signal the following DRX configuration parameters to the UE”).
For claim 3 Bao teaches the method according to claim 2, wherein the first information field is used for indicating that the terminal is in a wake-up state during a first drx-on Duration Timer of a first DRX cycle (paragraph 139 “drx-onDurationTimer”).
For claim 4 Bao teaches the method according to claim 3, wherein the determining the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the terminal with the DRX (paragraph 139 “drx-onDurationTimer and RX Inactivity Timer”) configuration based on the first information field comprises:
determining a time resource within the first drx-on Duration Timer as the active duration (paragraph 139 “drx-onDurationTimer and RX Inactivity Timer and subframes/slots (time resources)”).
For claim 5 Bao teaches the method according to claim 4, further comprising:
determining a time resource within a drx-Inactivity Timer of the first DRX cycle as the active duration (paragraph 139 “drx-onDurationTimer and RX Inactivity Timer and DRX cycle”).
For claim 7 Bao teaches the method according to claim 3, wherein the determining the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the terminal with the DRX configuration based on the first information field comprises:
determining a time resource within a second drx-on Duration Timer as the inactive duration (paragraph 139 “drx-onDurationTimer and RX Inactivity Timer and subframes/slots (time resources)”).
For claim 15 Bao teaches the method, further comprising:
performing transmission of the positioning signal at a time domain resource position corresponding to the active duration (paragraph 6 “a method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE) configured to operate in discontinuous reception (DRX) mode includes switching to DRX active time of a DRX cycle of the DRX mode and transmitting one or more uplink positioning reference signal (UL-PRS) resources of an UL-PRS occasion based on the UL-PRS occasion at least partially overlapping DRX OFF time of the DRX cycle after the DRX active time”); or,
performing transmission of the positioning signal at a time domain resource position corresponding to the inactive duration (paragraph 6 “a method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE) configured to operate in discontinuous reception (DRX) mode includes switching to DRX active time of a DRX cycle of the DRX mode and transmitting one or more uplink positioning reference signal (UL-PRS) resources of an UL-PRS occasion based on the UL-PRS occasion at least partially overlapping DRX OFF time of the DRX cycle after the DRX active time”); or,
performing transmission of the positioning signal at a time domain resource position corresponding to the active duration and a time domain resource position corresponding to the inactive duration (paragraph 6 “a method of wireless communication performed by a user equipment (UE) configured to operate in discontinuous reception (DRX) mode includes switching to DRX active time of a DRX cycle of the DRX mode and transmitting one or more uplink positioning reference signal (UL-PRS) resources of an UL-PRS occasion based on the UL-PRS occasion at least partially overlapping DRX OFF time of the DRX cycle after the DRX active time”).
For claim 19 Bao teaches a positioning signal transmission method, performed by an access network device (as discussed in claim 1), and comprising:
determining one or more of the an active duration or an inactive duration of a discontinuous reception DRX configuration (as discussed in claim 1); and
performing transmission of a positioning signal at a time domain resource position corresponding to the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the DRX configuration (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 20 Bao teaches the method, wherein the determining the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the DRX configuration comprises:
in response to a terminal and the access network device being in a connected state, sending first indication information to the terminal, wherein the first indication information comprises a first information field (as discussed in claim 2); and
determining the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the terminal with the DRX configuration based on the first information field (as discussed in claim 2).
For claim 21 Bao teaches the method according to claim 20, wherein the first information field is used for indicating that the terminal is in a wake-up state during a first drx-on Duration Timer of a first DRX cycle (as discussed in claim 3).
For claim 22 Bao teaches the method according to claim 21, wherein the determining the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the terminal with the DRX configuration based on the first information field comprises:
determining a time resource within the first drx-on Duration Timer as the active duration (as discussed in claim 4).
For claim 23 Bao teaches the method according to claim 22, further comprising:
determining a time resource within a drx-Inactivity Timer of the first DRX cycle as the active duration (as discussed in claim 5).
For claim 25 Bao teaches the method according to claim 21, wherein the determining the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the terminal with the DRX configuration based on the first information field comprises:
determining a time resource within a second drx-on Duration Timer as the inactive duration (as discussed in claim 7).
For claim 33 Bao teaches the method further comprising:
performing transmission of the positioning signal at a time domain resource position corresponding to the active duration (as discussed in claim 15); or,
performing transmission of the positioning signal at a time domain resource position corresponding to the inactive duration (as discussed in claim 15); or,
performing transmission of a positioning signal at a time domain resource position corresponding to the active duration and a time domain resource position corresponding to the inactive duration (as discussed in claim 15).
For claim 39 Bao teaches a terminal, comprising:
a processor (Fig. 3A “processor 332”); and
a transceiver connected to the processor (Fig. 3A “transceivers 316 connected to processor(s) 332”);
wherein the processor is configured to determine one or more of an active duration or an inactive duration of a discontinuous reception DRX configuration (as discussed in claim 1); and
perform transmission of a positioning signal at a time domain resource position corresponding to the one or more of the active duration or the inactive duration of the DRX configuration (as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 40 Bao teaches a network device, comprising:
a processor (Fig. 3B “processor 384”); and
a transceiver connected to the processor (Fig. 3A “transceivers 356 connected to processor(s) 384”);
wherein the processor is configured to execute executable instructions to implement the positioning signal transmission method according to claim 19 (as discussed in claim 19).
For claim 41 Bao teaches a computer-readable storage medium storing at least one instruction, at least one program, a code set or an instruction set, wherein the at least one instruction, the at least one program, the code set or the instruction set, when being executed by a processor, implements the positioning signal transmission method according to claim 1(paragraph 28 “non-transitory”, paragraphs 77-78 and as discussed in claim 1).
For claim 42 Bao teaches a computer-readable storage medium storing at least one instruction, at least one program, a code set or an instruction set, wherein the at least one instruction, the at least one program, the code set or the instruction set, when being executed by a processor, implements the positioning signal transmission method according to claim 19 (paragraph 28 “non-transitory”, paragraphs 77-78 and as discussed in claim 19).
Conclusion
6. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David M OVEISSI whose telephone number is (571)270-3127. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8Am-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski can be reached at (571) 270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MANSOUR OVEISSI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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