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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on July 18, 2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
The information disclosure statement filed October 22, 2024 fails to comply with 37 CFR 1.98(a)(2), which requires a legible copy of each cited foreign patent document; each non-patent literature publication or that portion which caused it to be listed; and all other information or that portion which caused it to be listed. It has been placed in the application file, but the information referred to therein has not been considered.
Drawings
The drawings were received on October 22, 2024. These drawings are acceptable.
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.
Claim(s) 21-23, 30-33, and 38-40 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Farag (Provisional US Patent Application 63/323,709, hereinafter “Farag ‘709”) in view of Farag (Provisional US Patent Application 63/327,716), hereinafter “Farag ‘716”).
Regarding claims 21, 31, and 38, Farag ‘709 discloses an apparatus for a user equipment (UE) configured for operation in a Fifth Generation New Radio (5G NR) network, the apparatus comprising:
processing circuitry (i.e., main processor 340 as shown in Fig. 3A, and as described on page 6), wherein to configure the UE for sidelink positioning in the 5G NR network, the processing circuitry is to:
decode higher layer signaling, the higher layer signaling to configure a plurality of sidelink positioning reference signal (SL PRS) resource pools (i.e., the UE is configured by higher layers in the network for SL positioning as described on page 32);
select an SL PRS resource from an SL PRS resource pool of the plurality of SL PRS resource pools (i.e., the UE determines or selects resources for transmission of SL PRS in step 602 as described in lines 1-3 of page 30);
decode configuration signaling to determine a comb offset of the SL PRS resource (i.e., the frequency domain resources include transmission comb for SL PRS and transmission comb offset as described in lines 9-18 of page 30); and
encode an SL PRS for transmission to a second UE based on the SL PRS resource and the comb offset (i.e., the UE transmits the SL PRS on the determined SL resource in step 603 as shown in Fig. 6 on page 31); and
a memory coupled to the processing circuitry and configured to store the higher layer signaling (i.e., memory 360 coupled to main processor 340 as described on page 6).
Farag ‘709, however, does not expressly disclose decode higher layer signaling received from a base station.
In a similar endeavor, Farag ‘716 discloses decode higher layer signaling received from a base station (i.e., in the DL PRS can be transmitted by a gNB to a UE as described in lines 1-12 of page 12).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to enable the UE to perform positioning measurements.
With further regard to claim 31, Farag ‘709 discloses a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors of a user equipment (UE), the instructions to configure the UE for sidelink positioning in a Fifth Generation New Radio (5G NR) network, and to cause the UE to perform operations of claim 21 (i.e., memory 360 includes a basic operating system program 361 and one or more applications 362 coupled to main processor 340 as described on page 6).
With further regard to claim 38, Farag ‘709 discloses a user equipment (UE) (i.e., UE 116) configured for operation in a Fifth Generation New Radio (5G NR) network (i.e., 5G network as described on page 9), the UE comprising:
front-end circuitry coupled to one or more antennas; and processing circuitry coupled to the front-end circuitry (i.e., antenna 305 coupled to transceiver 310, transmit processing circuitry 315, and receiving processing circuitry 325 coupled to main processor 340 as described on page 6).
Regarding claims 22, 32, and 39, Farag ‘709 and Farag ‘716 disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Farag ‘709 also discloses wherein the configuration signaling indicates one or more additional comb offsets for one or more remaining SL PRS resources of the SL PRS resource pool (i.e., transmission comb for SL PRS (e.g., a transmission comb of 2, every other sub carrier is used for positioning reference signal), and transmission comb offset as described in the last full paragraph of page 30).
Regarding claims 23, 33, and 40, Farag ‘709 and Farag ‘716 disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Farag ‘709 also discloses wherein the SL PRS resource pool is a dedicated SL PRS resource pool (i.e., the resource pool is dedicated to SL positioning as described on lines 16-18 of page 29).
Regarding claim 30, Farag ‘709 and Farag ‘716 disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Farag ‘709 also discloses a transceiver circuitry coupled to the processing circuitry (i.e., transceiver 310, transmit processing circuitry 315, and receiving processing circuitry 325 as described on page 6); and
one or more antennas coupled to the transceiver circuitry (i.e., antenna 305 coupled to transceiver 310, transmit processing circuitry 315, and receiving processing circuitry 325 coupled to main processor 340 as described on page 6).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 24-29, and 34-37 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WAYNE CAI whose telephone number is (571)272-7798. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday, 7:00 AM-5:00 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, KATHY WANG-HURST can be reached at (571)270-5371. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/Wayne H Cai/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644
Prosecution Insights