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 statements submitted on 1/24/25, 2/6/26, and 7/24/26 have been considered by the examiner and made of record in the application file.
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.
The factual inquiries 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.
Claims 1-3,5-8,15,16,18,27,28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Manolakos et al. (US 20250151008, hereinafter Manolakos) in view of Cha et al. (US 20220271888, hereinafter Cha)
Regarding claim 1, Manolakos discloses a first terminal device comprising:
at least one processor; and
at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first terminal device to (Par. 179: Lines 1-4; A UE comprises a memory and a processor communicatively coupled to the memory):
receive a plurality of sidelink (SL) positioning reference signal (PRS) configurations from a plurality of terminal devices (Par. 179: Lines 4-11; The UE is configured to detect a conflict between first and second sidelink reference transmission, wherein the first and second sidelink transmissions at least partially overlap in at least one time resource, and/or frequency resource; Par. 191: Lines 6-10; The UE decodes first sidelink control information (SCI) from the first sidelink UE to determine first time and/or frequency resources on which the first transmission is scheduled and decodes second SCI from a second sidelink UE to determine second time and/or frequency resources, on which the second transmission is scheduled; Par. 192; The first and second transmissions are first and second SL-PRS transmissions; The respective SCI constitutes a plurality of SL-PRS configurations because each SCI identifies the schedule time and/or frequency resources for the corresponding UE’s SL-PRS transmission);
determine, based on the plurality of SL PRS configurations, whether the plurality of terminal devices select overlapping resources for a plurality of SL PRS transmissions (Par. 121; SCIs from first and second UEs indicates that both UEs intent to transmit using the same future block of time-frequency resources, and the receiving UE decodes the respective SCI to determine that a future conflict will occur; Par. 191: Lines 6-20; The UE compares the respective time and frequency resources determined from the first and second SCI and determines that the transmissions overlap in at least one time resource, at least one frequency resource, or both; Par. 192; The respective transmissions are first and second SL-PRS transmissions); and
based on determining that the plurality of terminal devices selected overlapping resources, transmit, to a second terminal device among the plurality of terminal devices, an indication of the conflict that causes the second terminal device to update its SL-PRS transmission (Par. 121: Lines 16-20; After determining there will be a future conflict, UE-A (receiving UE) transmits an indication of a potential/expected resource conflict to UE-B; Par. 122; UE-B may be UE0 or UE1 (sending UE). After UE1 receives the indication, it may determine not transmit at the conflict resource location and reselect different sidelink resources for transmission).
Manolakos discloses transmitting, to a second terminal device among the plurality of terminal devices, an indication of the conflict that causes the second terminal device to update its SL-PRS transmission (as previously disclosed) but does not disclose transmitting, to a second terminal device among the plurality of terminal devices, a request to update an SL-PRS transmission by the second device.
Cha, however, discloses allowing a UE to directly request PRS muting or zero-power configuration (Par. 400; A method configures PRS muting or zero power in response to a UE request). More specifically, when PRSs transmitted by different transmitters use fully or partially identical time-frequency resources, the UE requests muting of one of the PRSs, and that PRS is muted in response to the request so that the UE can properly receive the other PRS (Par. 403: Lines 2-5; When two BSs transmit PRSs in fully or partially identical time-frequency resources, the UE may not properly receive a PRS from a specific BS; Par. 404: Lines 1-6; The UE may request muting for the PRS transmitted from a specific base station. The UE may then properly receive the PRS from the non-muted base station). Cha further discloses the UE transmitting information requesting zero-power or muting configuration for at least part of a PRS to the PRS transmission point, and the transmission point responsively transmitting the PRS with the requested part muted or configured with zero power (Par. 487; The TP may transmit at least one PRS at least partially configured with zero power and/or muting in response to the request for zero power and/or muting of PRS resources).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the Manolakos conflict indication as an express request that the second sidelink UE update its SL-PRS transmission by muting or setting to zero power at least the portion occupying the overlapping time and/or frequency resources, as taught by Cha, in order to reduce interference between the overlapping SL-PRS transmissions while preserving the nonoverlapping portions for positioning measurements.
Regarding claim 2 as applied to claim 1, the rejection of claim 1 addresses the limitations of claim 2, namely, Cha discloses wherein the request comprises a request for muting an SL PRS (Par. 403: Lines 2-5; When two BSs transmit PRSs in fully or partially identical time-frequency resources, the UE may not properly receive a PRS from a specific BS; Par. 404: Lines 1-6; The UE may request muting for the PRS transmitted from a specific base station. The UE may then properly receive the PRS from the non-muted base station).
Regarding claim 3 as applied to claim 2, Manolakos in view of Cha discloses the first terminal device of claim 2, as detailed above.
Manolakos in view of Cha does not expressly disclose that the request indicates muting the SL PRS in a first slot and that the first terminal device transmits, to a third terminal device, a request for muting another SL PRS in a second slot staggered from the first slot.
Cha, however, discloses applying different time-domain muting patterns to PRSs transmitted by different transmitters using the same time-frequency resources (Par. 354; TP #1 and TP #2 transmit the same PRS resource using the same time-frequency resources, and each TP uses a different muting pattern; Pars. 357–358; Muting pattern A causes the PRS from the first TP to be muted at the second and fourth transmission time points, while muting pattern B causes the PRS from the second TP to be muted at the first, third, and fifth transmission time points). Thus, the PRSs from the respective transmitters are muted during different, staggered time-domain transmission occasions.
Cha further discloses that a UE may request muting of a PRS transmitted by a particular transmitter and transmit information identifying the requested muting configuration to the transmitter (Par. 404; The UE requests muting of a PRS transmitted by a selected transmitter or of a selected PRS resource or resource set; Par. 487; The TP may transmit at least one PRS at least partially configured with zero power and/or muting in response to the request for zero power and/or muting of PRS resources).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the inter-UE SL-PRS conflict-management procedure of Manolakos to transmit respective muting requests to the second and third sidelink UEs, with the request to the second UE indicating muting in a first slot and the request to the third UE indicating muting in a second slot staggered from the first slot, as taught by the Cha. A person having ordinary skill would have been motivated to stagger the muted slots so that the SL PRSs transmitted by the respective UEs do not interfere with each other while allowing each SL PRS to remain available during different transmission occasions for positioning measurements.
Regarding claim 5 as applied to claim 2, Manolakos in view of Cha discloses the first terminal device of claim 2, as detailed above.
Manolakos further discloses receiving a first SL PRS from a second terminal device and a second SL PRS from a third terminal device on overlapping resources and determining that the received power of one SL PRS exceeds the received power of the other SL PRS by a power threshold (Par. 125; SL-PRS transmissions can collide such that there is partial or full overlap of the time and/or frequency resources being used; Par. 127; For pre collision detection, the receiving UE can decode the SCIs scheduling the colliding transmissions; Par. 128; A first and second UE transmit SL-PRSs with transmit power P1 and P2, respectively. Both the SL-RPS transmissions will collide at a receiving third UE. The third UE will be able to decode the first and second UE transmissions if a power threshold is reached; Par. 131: Lines: 7-20; After receiving the overlapping transmissions, the UE determines the collision based on the respective RSRP or SNR values; Par. 132: Lines 6-17; If one SL-PRS is weaker than the other, it will buried in noise. A collision is considered if the difference in signal strength (e.g., RSRP, SNR) is greater than a predetermined value);
Cha further discloses requesting that the transmitter of the stronger PRS mute its PRS transmission (Pars. 407; When multiple transmitters transmit PRSs using the same time-frequency resources, the PRS from the transmitter closer to the UE has a greater signal strength than the PRS from the farther transmitter and the UE may fail in receiving the PRS from the farther transmitter; Par. 408; The UE requests muting of the PRS from the closer transmitter so that the weaker PRS from the farther transmitter can be properly received).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to select, from the conflicting SL-PRS transmissions identified by Manolakos, the SL PRS whose received power exceeds that of the other SL PRS by the configured power threshold and transmit a request to its transmitting UE to mute that stronger SL PRS, as taught by Cha, in order to prevent the stronger SL PRS from masking the weaker SL PRS and thereby enable the first terminal device to receive and measure the weaker SL PRS for positioning
Regarding claim 6 as applied to claim 2, Manolakos discloses the first terminal device of claim 2, as detailed above.
Manolakos further discloses wherein the first terminal device is caused to transmit the request for muting the SL PRS by:
receiving, from a network device, a muting criterion for determining the SL PRS to be muted (Pars. 132–133; A location server controls the collision metric used to define an SL-PRS collision, and the UE determines that two SL-PRS transmission resources conflict when the difference between their respective RSRP or SNR values satisfies the configured threshold); and
transmit, based on the muting criterion, the request to the second terminal device (Pars. 186–187; The UE transmits the collision report based on the signal-strength difference satisfying a threshold received from a location server or serving base station; Par. 190; The collision report is transmitted to the sidelink UE whose transmission is involved in the conflict).
Regarding claim 7 as applied to claim 2, Manolakos does not disclose wherein the request comprises a request for muting a beam associated with the SL PRS transmission.
Cha, however, discloses a request for muting a beam associated with a PRS transmission (Par. 411; The request for configuring muting for a specific PRS resource transmitted from a TP may be interpreted as a request for configuring muting (zero power) for a specific TX beam on which the TP transmits the PRS).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the SL-PRS muting request of Manolakos in view of Cha so that the request identifies and mutes the particular transmission beam associated with the conflicting SL-PRS transmission, as taught by Cha, in order to selectively suppress the interfering SL PRS while allowing other SL-PRS beams or resources to remain available for positioning measurements.
Regarding claim 8 as applied to claim 2, Manolakos in view of Cha discloses the first terminal device of claim 2.
Manolakos further discloses transmitting a collision report via groupcast signaling to multiple sidelink terminal devices (Par. 145; A UE detects partially overlapping sidelink reference-signal transmissions from first and second sidelink UEs; Par. 146: Lines 1-9; The UE transmits a collision report to another sidelink UE, wherein the collision report may be transmitted to more than one UE by broadcast or groupcast.
However, Manolakos does not expressly disclose that the groupcast signaling requests muting of the SL PRS transmitted from the group of terminal devices.
Cha discloses transmitting a request for muting a PRS (Par. 403: Lines 2-5; When two BSs transmit PRSs in fully or partially identical time-frequency resources, the UE may not properly receive a PRS from a specific BS; Par. 404: Lines 1-6; The UE may request muting for the PRS transmitted from a specific base station).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Manolako’s groupcast collision report to include Cha’s request for muting a PRS, thereby transmitting the muting request via groupcast signaling to the group of sidelink terminal devices whose SL-PRS transmissions are involved in the detected conflict, in order to efficiently notify the affected terminal devices through a single group transmission and reduce interference caused by their overlapping SL-PRS transmissions.
Regarding claim 15, Manolakos discloses a second terminal device comprising:
at least one processor; and
at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the terminal device to:
transmit a sidelink (SL) positioning reference signal (PRS) configuration to a first terminal device (Par. 179: Lines 4-11; The UE is configured to detect a conflict between first and second sidelink reference transmission, wherein the first and second sidelink transmissions at least partially overlap in at least one time resource, and/or frequency resource; Par. 191: Lines 6-10; The UE decodes first sidelink control information (SCI) from the first sidelink UE to determine first time and/or frequency resources on which the first transmission is scheduled and decodes second SCI from a second sidelink UE to determine second time and/or frequency resources, on which the second transmission is scheduled; Par. 192; The first and second transmissions are first and second SL-PRS transmissions; The respective SCI constitutes a plurality of SL-PRS configurations because each SCI identifies the schedule time and/or frequency resources for the corresponding UE’s SL-PRS transmission. The receiving UE corresponds to the first UE and the sending UEs correspond to the second UE);
receive an indication of the conflict (Par. 121: Lines 16-20; After determining there will be a future conflict, UE-A (first UE) transmits an indication of a potential/expected resource conflict to UE-B (second UE); Par. 122; UE-B may be UE0 or UE1 (sending UE). After UE1 receives the indication, it may determine not transmit at the conflict resource location and reselect different sidelink resources for transmission).; and
update its SL-PRS transmission as a result of receiving the conflict indication (Par. 121: Lines 16-20; After determining there will be a future conflict, UE-A (first UE) transmits an indication of a potential/expected resource conflict to UE-B (second UE); Par. 122; UE-B may be UE0 or UE1 (sending UE). After UE1 (second UE) receives the indication, it may determine not transmit at the conflict resource location and reselect different sidelink resources for transmission).
Manolakos discloses a second terminal device, among the plurality of terminal devices, receiving an indication of the conflict that causes the second terminal device to update its SL-PRS transmission (as previously disclosed) but does not disclose a second terminal device receiving a request to update an SL-PRS transmission by a first device.
Cha, however, discloses allowing a UE to directly request PRS muting or zero-power configuration (Par. 400; A method configures PRS muting or zero power in response to a UE request). More specifically, when PRSs transmitted by different transmitters use fully or partially identical time-frequency resources, the UE requests muting of one of the PRSs, and that PRS is muted in response to the request so that the UE can properly receive the other PRS (Par. 403: Lines 2-5; When two BSs transmit PRSs in fully or partially identical time-frequency resources, the UE may not properly receive a PRS from a specific BS; Par. 404: Lines 1-6; The UE may request muting for the PRS transmitted from a specific base station. The UE may then properly receive the PRS from the non-muted base station).
Cha further discloses the UE transmitting information requesting zero-power or muting configuration for at least part of a PRS to the PRS transmission point, and the transmission point responsively transmitting the PRS with the requested part muted or configured with zero power (Par. 487; The TP may transmit at least one PRS at least partially configured with zero power and/or muting in response to the request for zero power and/or muting of PRS resources).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the Manolakos conflict indication as an express request that the second sidelink UE update its SL-PRS transmission by muting or setting to zero power at least the portion occupying the overlapping time and/or frequency resources, as taught by Cha, in order to reduce interference between the overlapping SL-PRS transmissions while preserving the nonoverlapping portions for positioning measurements.
Regarding claim 16 as applied to claim 15, the rejection of claim 2 addresses the limitations presented in claim 16. Therefore, the limitations of claim 16 have been addressed.
Regarding claim 18 as applied to claim 16, Manolakos in view of Cha discloses the second terminal device of claim 16, as discussed above.
Cha further discloses updating the PRS transmission by muting transmission of the PRS based on the received request (Pars. 486–487; The UE transmits information requesting a zero-power and/or muting configuration, the TP receives the information, and, in response to the request, the TP transmits the PRS at least partially configured with zero power and/or muting). Thus, the transmitting device actually applies muting to its PRS transmission based on the received request.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the second terminal device of Manolakos to mute transmission of its SL-PRS in response to the received conflict/update request, as taught by Cha, in order to reduce interference caused by conflicting positioning-reference-signal transmissions and improve the first terminal device’s ability to receive and measure the remaining SL-PRS transmissions.
Regarding claim 27, the rejection of claim 1 addresses the limitations presented in claim 27. Therefore, the limitations of claim 27 have been addressed.
Regarding claim 28, the rejection of claim 15 addresses the limitations presented in claim 28. Therefore, the limitations of claim 28 have been addressed.
Claims 9,20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Manolakos et al. (US 20250151008, hereinafter Manolakos) in view of Cha et al. (US 20220271888, hereinafter Cha) in further view of Hwang et al. (US 20170359116, hereinafter Hwang)
Regarding claim 9 as applied to claim 2, Manolakos in view of Cha discloses the first terminal device of claim 2. The combination does not expressly disclose, after receiving from the second terminal device an indication that the SL PRS is not to be muted, transmitting the request to a third terminal device other than the second terminal device.
Hwang, however, discloses receiving from an initially selected UE an indication that the UE will not continue the requested operation and, in response, selecting and communicating with another UE (Par. 204; The relay UE 1 determines to release connection between UE 1 and a remote UE 4; Par. 206: Lines 1-2; The remote UE 4 may reselect a relay UE among the candidate relay UEs other than the relay UE that requested release connection; Par. 228; a remote UE may reselect its relay UE upon receiving a rejection or connection-release request from the currently selected relay UE).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SL-PRS coordination system of Manolakos and Cha such that, upon receiving an indication that the initially requested terminal will not mute its SL PRS, the first terminal transmits the muting request to another terminal device contributing to the resource conflict, as suggested by Hwang, in order to provide an alternative conflict-mitigation path when the initially selected terminal refuses or is unable to comply.
Regarding claim 20 as applied to claim 16, the rejection of claim 9 addresses the limitations presented in claim 20. Therefore, the limitations of claim 20 have been addressed.
Claims 10,21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Manolakos et al. (US 20250151008, hereinafter Manolakos) in view of Cha et al. (US 20220271888, hereinafter Cha) in further view of Hoang et al. (WO 2023154782, hereinafter Hoang)
Regarding claim 10 as applied to claim 1, Manolakos in view of Cha does not disclose wherein the request comprises at least one of a request for changing an SL PRS identification (ID) or a request for using an orthogonal cover code (OCC); and wherein the request further indicates at least one of an SL PRS ID or an SL PRS sequence initialization.
Hoang, however, discloses a terminal requesting another terminal to transmit an SL PRS and indicating SL-PRS transmission parameters for use in performing the requested transmission (Paras. 156–157, 182; a T-WTRU requests an A-WTRU to perform SL-PRS transmission and indicates SL-PRS transmission parameters for the A-WTRU to use). The SL-PRS transmission parameters may include a sequence ID, and the transmitting A-WTRU may determine its SL-PRS transmission parameters, including a set of sequence IDs, based on an indication received from the requesting T-WTRU (Paras. 109–110, 140). An SL-PRS configuration may expressly include an SL-PRS sequence ID, another ID used to generate the SL-PRS sequence, or an SL-PRS ID (Par. 95).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SL-PRS update request of Manolakos in view of Cha to request that the transmitting terminal use a different SL-PRS sequence ID and to include the desired SL-PRS ID or sequence-ID information in the request, as taught by Hoang, so that the transmitting terminal is informed of the particular sequence configuration to use and overlapping SL-PRS transmissions can be distinguished.
Regarding claim 21 as applied to claim 15, the rejection of claim 10 addresses the limitations presented in claim 21. Therefore, the limitations of claim 21 have been addressed.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Manolakos et al. (US 20250151008, hereinafter Manolakos) in view of Cha et al. (US 20220271888, hereinafter Cha) in further view of Hoang et al. (WO 2023154782, hereinafter Hoang) in further view of You et al. (WO 2021062729, hereinafter You) in further view of Hoshino (JP 2008187308)
Regarding claim 12 as applied to claim 10, Manolakos in view of Cha in further view of Hoang discloses the first terminal device of claim 10.
The combination does not expressly disclose determining a first distance between the first terminal device and the second terminal device, determining a second distance between the first terminal device and a third terminal device, and determining whether a difference between the first and second distances satisfies a distance threshold.
You, however, discloses a terminal determining respective distances to multiple wireless communication nodes and applying thresholds to the difference between those distances (Page 17: Steps 2-4: Lines 10-32; The terminal measures a first distance to the serving-cell position and respective distances and to candidate-cell positions, determines that exceeds by threshold and that the change in exceeds threshold , and selects gNB2 based on the threshold determinations).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Manolakos in view of Cha in further view of Hoang to determine respective distances between the first terminal device and multiple transmitting terminal devices and compare the difference between those distances with a threshold, as taught by You, in order to select a communication operation based on the first terminal device’s relative proximity to the multiple transmitting devices.
Manolakos in view of Cha in further view of Hoang in further view of You does not expressly disclose using satisfaction of the distance-difference threshold to determine whether to transmit the request for changing the SL-PRS ID.
Hoshina, however, discloses that differences between the respective distances of multiple transmitting terminals from a common receiving device cause differences in received signal strength and produce a near-far problem in code-division communication (Page 5: Lines 14-15; The difference in the distances of multiple mobile terminals communicating with the same base station causes a difference in radio-field intensity at the base station. The base station measures the received power from each terminal and controls their transmission powers to address the CMA near-far problem).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Manolakos in view of Cha in further view of Hoang in further view of You to use satisfaction of the distance-difference threshold when determining whether to transmit the SL-PRS ID-change request taught for claim 10. Hoshina establishes that the respective distances of multiple transmitters from a common receiver affect their received-power balance and the receiver’s ability to distinguish code-domain transmissions. Using the known distance-difference threshold to trigger the request for different SL-PRS sequence identification when the transmitter distances are sufficiently similar would predictably permit the overlapping SL-PRS transmissions to be distinguished without muting either transmission.
Claims 13,14,19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Manolakos et al. (US 20250151008, hereinafter Manolakos) in view of Cha et al. (US 20220271888, hereinafter Cha) in further view of Chatterjee et al. (CN 117528791, hereinafter Chatterjee)
Regarding claim 13 as applied to claim 1, Manolakos in view of Cha discloses the first terminal device of claim 1. The combination does not expressly disclose receiving, from the second terminal device, an indication of an SL-PRS muting pattern.
Chatterjee, however, discloses a transmitting UE encoding control information indicating one or more muting patterns for SL-PRS transmissions and sending the control information to a receiving UE (Paras. 150–152; the Tx UE encodes control information identifying one or more muting patterns for SL-PRS transmissions and transmits the control information to the receiving UE). Correspondingly, the receiving UE decodes the received control information to obtain the one or more SL-PRS muting patterns (Paras. 146–148).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the SL-PRS coordination system of Manolakos in view Cha such that the second terminal transmits an indication of its SL-PRS muting pattern to the first terminal, as taught by Chatterjee, so that the first terminal can determine which SL-PRS transmission occasions will be muted and avoid attempting measurements during those occasions.
Regarding claim 14 as applied to claim 13, Manolakos in view of Cha in further view of Chatterjee discloses the terminal device of claim 13, including the first terminal device transmitting a request to the second terminal device to update or mute the second terminal device’s SL-PRS transmission.
The combination does not expressly disclose that the request comprises an activation message for activating the muting pattern.
Chatterjee, however, discloses configuring multiple muting patterns for SL-PRS resources and enabling one or more of the muting-pattern options for SL-PRS transmissions (Par. 123). Chatterjee further discloses including a field in SCI signaling that indicates whether a corresponding SL-PRS muting pattern is enabled or disabled, wherein a bit value of “1” may indicate that the muting pattern is enabled for the corresponding SL-PRS resource, resource set, or resource pool (Par. 125). The SCI indication enabling the muting pattern constitutes an activation message for activating the muting pattern.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the request transmitted from the first terminal device to the second terminal device in Manolakos in view of Cha to include the SCI enable indication taught by Chatterjee, thereby activating the previously indicated muting pattern at the second terminal device. A person having ordinary skill would have been motivated to make this modification to permit dynamic activation of a preconfigured SL-PRS muting pattern using a concise signaling indication, thereby reducing signaling overhead and avoiding transmission of a complete replacement SL-PRS configuration.
Regarding claim 19 as applied to claim 16, the combination of references discloses the second terminal device of claim 16, as discussed above.
Cha discloses that the transmitting device receives information requesting a zero-power and/or muting configuration and, in response, transmits the PRS at least partially configured with zero power and/or muting (Par. 486-487).
Chatterjee further discloses avoiding transmission of SL-PRS resources during occasions designated as muted by a muting pattern (Par. 119; All SL-PRS resources or repetitions designated as muted by the bitmap are muted). Chatterjee also discloses that a transmitting UE encodes control information identifying one or more SL-PRS muting patterns and transmits that control information to a receiving UE (Par. 150–152). The receiving UE may be a target UE participating in sidelink positioning (Par. 112: Lines 1-3; The receiver UE (target UE) and a sending UE (anchor UE) participate in sidelink positioning). Because the indicated muting pattern identifies the SL-PRS resources or occasions that are muted, the control information constitutes an indication to another terminal device to be positioned that the SL-PRS is muted.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to configure the second terminal device of Manolakos in view of Cha to avoid transmitting its SL-PRS in accordance with the requested muting and to transmit control information identifying the applied muting pattern to another target terminal device, as taught by Chatterjee, so that the target terminal device knows which SL-PRS resources or occasions will be muted and can avoid attempting measurements on those resources.
Conclusion
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/FABIAN BOTELLO/Examiner, Art Unit 2648
/WESLEY L KIM/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2648
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