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 .
Status of Claims
The following is a non-final, first action on the merits, in response to application filed February 05, 2025. The preliminary amended claims 1-15, are currently pending.
Priority
Certified copy of priority document GB 2211618.0 dated August 09, 2022, is acknowledged which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDSs) submitted on 02/05/2025, 12/18/2025, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-15, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Thomas et al (hereinafter Thomas) (WO 2022/034483, IDS).
Regarding claims 1, 5, 10, 13, Thomas discloses a method (apparatus) of localizing target user equipment (UE) by a located UE in a network (method includes for a location management function (LMF) of a communication network determining an estimated location of a target UE to be localized using one or more sidelink timing-based positioning techniques, the method comprising:
receiving, from the target UE, information for ranging measurements or estimation results of the target UE (receiving from the target UE a report comprising of one or more SL RTT measurements between the target UE and one or more additional UEs) measurement between target node and the anchor node, an estimated location of a target UE to be localized using one or more sidelink timing-based positioning techniques) (paras. 0006, 0100, 0101); and
transmitting, to a location management function (LMF), the information for ranging measurements or estimation results of the target UE (For UE-assisted positioning, the LMF 635 uses 2D (x, y) coordinates of the anchor nodes transmitting SL PRS as well as the transmit time offsets in order to localize the target UE 605) (paras. 0104, 0122-0124),
wherein the information for ranging measurements or estimation results of the target UE is used to calculate a location of the target UE (paras. 0059, 0129, 0134, 0181). Thomas further discloses a transceiver (11025, fig. 11) and a controller coupled with the transceiver and configured to control to: receive (processor 1105, in one embodiment, may include any known controller capable of executing instructions and/or capable of performing logical operations (paras. 0156, 0158).
Regarding claims 2, 11, Thomas discloses wherein the information for ranging measurements or estimation results of the target UE is transmitted from the located UE to the LMF via a serving access and mobility management function (AMF) of the located UE (the ranging information is received via AMF) (paras. 0055, 0082).
Regarding claims 3, 8, 12, Thomas discloses wherein proximity services (ProSe} capabilities of the target UE and the located UE are registered with an access and mobility management function (AMF) (for remote units registration is a requirement to establish PDU session with the mobile core network 140) (paras. 0047, 0054, 0055).
Regarding claims 4, 9, Thomas discloses wherein the located UE is a sidelink (SL) reference UE of which a location is known or is able to be known using positioning (for SL RAT-dependent positioning a method to enable the configuration and signaling for SL time-difference-based positioning using a fixed reference and/or mobile reference for out-of-coverage, partial coverage, and in-coverage scenarios is described. Time-difference-based measurements and location estimation provide the highest resolution in terms of accuracy for a target UE) (para. 0108).
Regarding claims 6, 14, Thomas discloses identifying multiple located UEs associated with the target UE (identify multiple UEs, anchor UEs, associated with target UE) (paras. 0108, 0109); and
performing the calculation of the location of the target UE using information from the multiple located UEs (a technique for a target UE to autonomously perform round trip time (RTT) measurements for TX-RX distance/range computation using multiple beams between multiple pairs of UEs in sidelink is described. In various embodiments, RTT measurements for TX-RX distance computation can be configured) (para. 0109).
Regarding claims 7, 15, Thomas discloses wherein the information for ranging measurements or estimation results of the target UE is received from the located UE to the LMF via a serving access and mobility management function (AMF) of the located UE (LMF 147 receives measurements from RAN 120 and the remote unit 105 (e.g., via the AMF 143) and computes the position of the remote unit 105) (paras. 0053, 0055, 0082).
Conclusion
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/QUTBUDDIN GHULAMALI/
Primary Examiner,
Art Unit 2632.
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