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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/12/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In response to applicant’s argument in pages 8-13, the applicant asserts that “independent claim 1 is patentable over the art of record. Independent claim 27 recites similar aspects as independent claim 1. Thus, independent claim 27 is also patentable over the art of record for similar reasons as independent claim 1.”
The applicant further asserts in page 10 that “the Office Action still has not shown that Cao discloses or suggests at least "receive, from a base station, a sidelink grant allocating, in sidelink Mode 1 multiple contiguous subchannels in each of multiple resource block (RB) sets in a slot wherein the multiple contiguous subchannels in a given RB set of the multiple RB sets are contiguous in frequency within the given RB set," as recited in independent claim 1.” Examiner respectively disagrees since as indicated by the office action, CAO teaches
“receive, from a base station, a sidelink grant allocating, in sidelink Mode 1 (par. 5, 88, 89, 90, NR SL Mode 1 includes dynamic scheduling and SL configured grant (CG) transmission) multiple contiguous subchannels across multiple resource block (RB) sets in a slot for the apparatus to use for transmitting sidelink communications (par. 23, 28, 91, 93, transmitting a SL configured grant (CG) to a UE to configure one or more transmission resources available for SL transmissions by the UE that repeats on a periodic basis within each of a plurality of periods; par. 97, 99, The frequency domain resource configuration may include, for example, the active Bandwidth part (BWP) used for SL transmission and subchannels/Resource block group (RBG) of the BWP…frequency allocation corresponding to the RB that starts at RB index RB_{start}+m*N_{RB_in_subchannel} and with n_{subchannel} number of continuous RBs to be used; fig. 2, 3, par. 174, 176);”
As indicated by CAO in fig. 1B, par. 97, 174, discloses “multiple contiguous subchannels across multiple resource block (RB) sets in a slot” since as indicated by par. 97, “…the frequency domain configuration may first indicate the starting RB of the first frequency sub-channel (RB_{start}), number of RBs per frequency subchannel (N_{RB_in_subchannel})…” in a slot, which would indicated each subchannel including number of RBs or RB set and multiple subchannels including number or RBs or RB set and assigning multiple subchannels would indicating multiple RB sets would consider as “multiple contiguous subchannels across multiple resource block (RB) sets in a slot”.
As further indicated by the office action, CAO does not teach “multiple contiguous subchannels in each of multiple resource block (RB) sets”, but HWANG in fig. 18, par. 125, 172 teaches multiple contiguous subchannels in each of multiple resource block (RB) sets (fig. 18, par. 125, 172, a plurality of subchannels may be divided into a first RB group (or a first plurality of subchannels or a first subchannel set) and a second RB group (or a second plurality of subchannels or a second subchannel set));
And as further indicated by HWANG in par. 175, the UE using or assigned the first RB group or first subchannel group and second RB group or second subchannel group.
Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would able to modify the system of CAO with HWANG for allocating to “receive, from a base station, a sidelink grant allocating, in sidelink Mode 1 multiple contiguous subchannels in each of multiple resource block (RB) sets in a slot for the apparatus to use for transmitting sidelink communications, wherein the multiple contiguous subchannels in a given RB set of the multiple RB sets are contiguous in frequency within the given RB set;”
The applicant further asserts in pages 10, 11 that “not only does Cao fail to disclose or suggest performing LBT, but Cao also expressly teaches away from using LBT for the purposes described in its disclosure. Thus, one having ordinary skill would not and could not combine Cao with Han or any other reference that may disclose LBT to arrive at the claimed aspects.” Examiner respectively disagrees.
As indicated by par. 289 of CAO, “Sensing using Type a) reservation works similar to LTE long term sensing, however, reservation Types b) and c) are newly introduced in NR…With the above three reservation types, LBT type of short-term sensing is not needed in NR V2X, as it may further increase the energy consumption and complexity of the sensing procedure”, does not teach away from using the LBT but just LBT type of short-term sensing is not needed in NR V2X as it may further increase the energy consumption and complexity of the sensing procedure as long term sensing already being implemented. Depended on the requirement of the invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would able to implement different LBT. As indicated by the office action, HAN in par. 40-42, teach the “perform a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure over the slot”, therefore one of ordinary skill in the art would able to implement the LBT procedure over the slot as in HAN in the system of CAO.
The applicant further asserts in page 11 that “Cao fails to disclose or suggest that the sensing is performed over units of the subchannels, which are cited in alleged support of the claimed "multiple RB sets."” Examiner respectively disagrees since as indicated from above and office action, CAO in par. 23, 28, 91, 93, 174, 176, teaches the scheduling or allocation of the multiple RB sets for SL transmission and in par. 181-183, the UE further sensing the transmission of SCI of other UEs to refrain from using the resource for SL transmission. Therefore, CAO teaches “perform sensing procedure in Mode 2 over a multiple RB sets in the slot”.
In response to applicant’s argument in pages 11-12, the applicant asserts that “Hwang does not equate to the UE performing sensing "over each of multiple RB sets in a slot, as generally recited of the "listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure over each of the multiple RB sets in the slot" in independent claim 1.” Examiner respectively disagrees as indicated by par. 118 of HWANG, “the sensing may be performed in unit of subchannels” and further in par. 125, 172 of HWANG and the subchannels being part of first RB group or set and second RB group or set, which would indicating the sensing of first RB group or set and second RB group or set. Therefore, HWANG teaches sensing for each of the multiple RB sets in the slot. Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would able to schedule or assign the grouping of the RBs as in HWANG in CAO with each of subchannels with RBs that subchannels in each of multiple RB sets. As indicated by both CAO and HWANG, the UE performs sensing on the resource, subchannels in each of multiple RB sets, before transmitting. Therefore, given the disclosure HAN of perform a LBT procedure over the slot as indicated above and the office action, one of ordinary skill in the art would able to implement the perform a LBT procedure over the slot as in HAN to perform the LBT procedure over the resource, subchannels in each of multiple RB sets, as in HWANG. Therefore, the combination of CAO, HAN, and HWANG would teach "listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure over each of the multiple RB sets in the slot".
Therefore, the combination of CAO, HAN, and HWANG would teach claims 1, 27 and claims 20, 29 and the claims.
The rejection is maintained.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 15, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29, 30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CAO et al. (US 20210144750) in view of HAN et al. (US 20240098782) and HWANG et al. (US 20200351136).
Regarding claims 1, 27, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches an apparatus for wireless communication (fig. 6, UE), comprising:
a transceiver (fig. 6, UE);
a memory configured to store instructions (fig. 6, UE); and
one or more processors communicatively coupled with the memory and the transceiver (fig. 6, UE), wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to (fig. 6, UE):
receive, from a base station, a sidelink grant allocating, in sidelink Mode 1 (par. 5, 88, 89, 90, NR SL Mode 1 includes dynamic scheduling and SL configured grant (CG) transmission) multiple contiguous subchannels across multiple resource block (RB) sets in a slot for the apparatus to use for transmitting sidelink communications (par. 23, 28, 91, 93, transmitting a SL configured grant (CG) to a UE to configure one or more transmission resources available for SL transmissions by the UE that repeats on a periodic basis within each of a plurality of periods; par. 97, 99, The frequency domain resource configuration may include, for example, the active Bandwidth part (BWP) used for SL transmission and subchannels/Resource block group (RBG) of the BWP…frequency allocation corresponding to the RB that starts at RB index RB_{start}+m*N_{RB_in_subchannel} and with n_{subchannel} number of continuous RBs to be used; fig. 2, 3, par. 174, 176);
perform sensing procedure in Mode 2 over a multiple RB sets in the slot (par. 181, 182, 183, the UE measures the SL-RSRP associated with the resource reserved by the other UE, and determines whether the measured SL-RSRP is above the SL-RSRP threshold. The SL-RSRP can be measured based on the PSSCH data transmission associated with and transmitted along with the SCI or based on SCI itself; par. 97, 99, number of RBs per frequency subchannel or multiple RB sets; par. 289, LBT); and
transmit, to one or more other UEs, sidelink communications in the multiple contiguous subchannels across resource in the slot for which the LBT procedure succeeds (par. 181, 182, 183, “If both conditions are satisfied, then the UE will trigger reselection of the resource(s) that overlap with the resource being reserved by another UE” and both conditions are not satisfied then the UE will perform transmission as in par. 121 in resource reserved as in par. 97, 99, in a subset of the multiple RB sets or a set of RBs in a subchannel of the multiple RBs in a multiple subchannels; par. 289, LBT).
However, CAO does not teach receive a sidelink grant allocating, in sidelink Mode 1; perform a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure over the slot.
But, HAN et al. (US 20240098782) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches receive a sidelink grant allocating, in sidelink Mode 1 (par. 40-42, resource allocation mode 1 for allocating sidelink transmission); perform a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure over the slot (fig. 3A, 3B, 3D, par. 40-42, each sidelink transmission in the sidelink transmission procedure, a LBT procedure can be performed for occupying the channel; par. 64, 66, time domain);
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by HAN in the system of CAO to allocate resource for sidelink transmission.
The motivation would have been to prevent collision in grant resource.
However, CAO does not teach multiple contiguous subchannels in each of multiple resource block (RB) sets; wherein the multiple contiguous subchannels in a given RB set of the multiple RB sets are contiguous in frequency within the given RB set; the multiple contiguous subchannels in each of resource;
But, HWANG et al. (US 20200351136) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches multiple contiguous subchannels in each of multiple resource block (RB) sets (fig. 18, par. 125, 172, a plurality of subchannels may be divided into a first RB group (or a first plurality of subchannels or a first subchannel set) and a second RB group (or a second plurality of subchannels or a second subchannel set));
each of the multiple RB sets in a the slot over which a sensing procedure succeeds for the transmitting UE (fig. 18, par. 118, 125, 132, 172, the sensing may be performed in unit of subchannels. In addition, the UE 1 which has autonomously selected the resource within the resource pool may transmit the SCI to the UE 2 through a PSCCH, and thereafter may transmit data based on the SCI to the UE 2 through a PSSCH…a plurality of subchannels may be divided into a first RB group (or a first plurality of subchannels or a first subchannel set) and a second RB group (or a second plurality of subchannels or a second subchannel set)), wherein the multiple contiguous subchannels in a given RB set of the multiple RB sets are contiguous in frequency within the given RB set (fig. 18, par. 125, 172, a plurality of subchannels may be divided into a first RB group (or a first plurality of subchannels or a first subchannel set) and a second RB group (or a second plurality of subchannels or a second subchannel set)).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by HWANG in the system of CAO and HAN to allocate resource for sidelink transmission.
The motivation would have been to improve phase tracking to improve the sidelink communication (HWANG par. 15, 175).
Regarding claims 2, 28, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to transmit the sidelink communications at least in part by transmitting each transport block of multiple transport blocks over one of the subset of the multiple RB sets (par. 113, transmitting the TB in RB as in par. 97, 99, “The frequency domain configuration may then indicate the index of the frequency subchannel m to be used for the transmission. A UE may then determine its frequency allocation corresponding to the RB that starts at RB index RB_{start}+m*N_{RB_in_subchannel} and with n_{subchannel} number of continuous RBs to be used. In the case, a transmission pattern bitmap is determined in the time domain and different subchannels may be used in the frequency domain for different repetitions of the TB, the frequency domain configuration may further indicate the frequency index for each transmission/repetition of the TB”).
Regarding claim 3, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 2, wherein each transport block includes a physical sidelink control channel and a physical sidelink shared channel transmitted in the multiple contiguous subchannels of the one of the subset of the multiple RB sets (fig. 3, par. 97, 99, 185, the resource assigned to each PSSCH transmission may include more than 1 subchannel in the frequency domain… a set of resources 300, 302, 304, 306 reserved by an SCI contained in the initial resource 300; PSSCH and PSCCH).
Regarding claim 4, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to prepare, based on the sidelink grant, a set of transport blocks, including the multiple transport blocks, for transmission over the multiple RB sets (par. 28, 42, 48, 97, 99, transmitting one or more transmissions of at least one TB using the one or more transmission resources configured by the SL configured grant), and wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to transmit each transport block at least in part by selecting the multiple transport blocks from the set of transport blocks based on the subset of the multiple RB sets for which the LBT procedure succeeds (par. 181, 182, 183, “If both conditions are satisfied, then the UE will trigger reselection of the resource(s) that overlap with the resource being reserved by another UE” and both conditions are not satisfied then the UE will perform transmission as in par. 121 in resource reserved as in par. 97, 99, in a subset of the multiple RB sets or a set of RBs in a subchannel of the multiple RBs in a multiple subchannels; par. 289, LBT).
Regarding claim 5, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the sidelink grant indicates multiple retransmission RB sets in a subsequent slot for retransmitting the sidelink communications (par. 48, 97, 99), and wherein each transport block includes a physical sidelink control channel that indicates a corresponding one of the multiple retransmission RB sets in the subsequent slot for retransmitting the sidelink communications (par. 48, 49, 57, 97, 99, 104, TB for PSCCH that for retransmission).
Regarding claim 6, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the sidelink grant indicates multiple retransmission RB sets in a subsequent slot for retransmitting the sidelink communications (par. 48, 97, 99), and wherein each transport block includes a physical sidelink control channel that indicates the multiple retransmission RB sets in the subsequent slot for retransmitting the sidelink communications (par. 48, 49, 57, 97, 99, 104, TB for PSCCH that for retransmission).
Regarding claim 15, CAO teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to transmit, to the base station, feedback for requesting resources for retransmitting the sidelink communications (par. 53, 110, 249, 251), wherein the feedback indicates an amount of RB sets in the subset of the multiple RB sets used for transmitting sidelink communications (par. 249, the UE may report a set of best or preferred resources).
Regarding claim 20, 29, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches an apparatus for wireless communication (fig. 6, UE), comprising: a transceiver (fig. 6, UE); a memory configured to store instructions (fig. 6, UE); and one or more processors communicatively coupled with the memory and the transceiver (fig. 6, UE), wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to (fig. 6, UE):
receive sidelink communications from a transmitting UE in multiple contiguous subchannels across multiple resource block (RB) sets in a slot over which a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure succeeds for the transmitting UE (par. 181, 182, 183, 184, “If both conditions are satisfied, then the UE will trigger reselection of the resource(s) that overlap with the resource being reserved by another UE” and both conditions are not satisfied then the UE will perform transmission as in par. 121 in resource reserved as in par. 97, 99, in a subset of the multiple RB sets or a set of RBs in a subchannel of the multiple RBs in a multiple subchannels; par. 289, 293, 294, 295, LBT or sensing window);
decode sidelink control information in one of the contiguous subchannels present in each of the multiple RB sets to determine whether a sidelink data channel is intended for the apparatus (par. 181, 182, 183, “If both conditions are satisfied, then the UE will trigger reselection of the resource(s) that overlap with the resource being reserved by another UE” and both conditions are not satisfied then the UE will perform transmission as in par. 121 in resource reserved as in par. 97, 99, in a subset of the multiple RB sets or a set of RBs in a subchannel of the multiple RBs in a multiple subchannels); and
decode, where the sidelink control information indicates that the sidelink data channel is intended for the apparatus, the sidelink data channel in one or more of the contiguous subchannels in one or more of the multiple RB sets (par. 181, 182, 183, “If both conditions are satisfied, then the UE will trigger reselection of the resource(s) that overlap with the resource being reserved by another UE” and both conditions are not satisfied then the UE will perform transmission as in par. 121 in resource reserved as in par. 97, 99, in a subset of the multiple RB sets or a set of RBs in a subchannel of the multiple RBs in a multiple subchannels).
However, CAO does not teach allocated by a base station in sidelink Mode 1, for which a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure.
But, HAN et al. (US 20240098782) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches allocated by a base station in sidelink Mode 1 (par. 40-42, resource allocation mode 1 for allocating sidelink transmission), for which a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure (fig. 3A, 3B, 3D, par. 40-42, each sidelink transmission in the sidelink transmission procedure, a LBT procedure can be performed for occupying the channel; par. 64, 66, time domain).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by HAN in the system of CAO to allocate resource for sidelink transmission.
The motivation would have been to prevent collision in grant resource.
However, CAO does not teach multiple contiguous subchannels in each of multiple resource block (RB) sets; wherein the multiple contiguous subchannels in a given RB set of the multiple RB sets are contiguous in frequency within the given RB set; the multiple contiguous subchannels in each of resource;
But, HWANG et al. (US 20200351136) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches multiple contiguous subchannels in each of multiple resource block (RB) sets (fig. 18, par. 125, 172, a plurality of subchannels may be divided into a first RB group (or a first plurality of subchannels or a first subchannel set) and a second RB group (or a second plurality of subchannels or a second subchannel set));
wherein the multiple contiguous subchannels in a given RB set of the multiple RB sets are contiguous in frequency within the given RB set (fig. 18, par. 125, 172, a plurality of subchannels may be divided into a first RB group (or a first plurality of subchannels or a first subchannel set) and a second RB group (or a second plurality of subchannels or a second subchannel set)); Perform a sensing procedure each of the multiple RB sets in a the slot (fig. 18, par. 118, 125, 132, 172, the sensing may be performed in unit of subchannels. In addition, the UE 1 which has autonomously selected the resource within the resource pool may transmit the SCI to the UE 2 through a PSCCH, and thereafter may transmit data based on the SCI to the UE 2 through a PSSCH…a plurality of subchannels may be divided into a first RB group (or a first plurality of subchannels or a first subchannel set) and a second RB group (or a second plurality of subchannels or a second subchannel set));
transmit, to one or more other UEs, sidelink communications in the multiple contiguous subchannels in each of resource in the slot for which the LBT procedure succeeds (fig. 18, par. 118, 125, 132, 172, the sensing may be performed in unit of subchannels. In addition, the UE 1 which has autonomously selected the resource within the resource pool may transmit the SCI to the UE 2 through a PSCCH, and thereafter may transmit data based on the SCI to the UE 2 through a PSSCH).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by HWANG in the system of CAO and HAN to allocate resource for sidelink transmission.
The motivation would have been to improve phase tracking to improve the sidelink communication (HWANG par. 15, 175).
Regarding claims 21, 30, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 20, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to receive the sidelink communications at least in part by receiving each transport block of multiple transport blocks over one of at least a subset of the multiple RB sets (par. 113, transmitting the TB in RB as in par. 97, 99, “The frequency domain configuration may then indicate the index of the frequency subchannel m to be used for the transmission. A UE may then determine its frequency allocation corresponding to the RB that starts at RB index RB_{start}+m*N_{RB_in_subchannel} and with n_{subchannel} number of continuous RBs to be used. In the case, a transmission pattern bitmap is determined in the time domain and different subchannels may be used in the frequency domain for different repetitions of the TB, the frequency domain configuration may further indicate the frequency index for each transmission/repetition of the TB”).
Regarding claim 22, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 21, wherein each transport block includes a physical sidelink control channel and a physical sidelink shared channel transmitted in the multiple contiguous subchannels of the one of the subset of the multiple RB sets (fig. 3, par. 97, 99, 185, the resource assigned to each PSSCH transmission may include more than 1 subchannel in the frequency domain… a set of resources 300, 302, 304, 306 reserved by an SCI contained in the initial resource 300; PSSCH and PSCCH).
Claim(s) 7-10, 23-25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CAO et al. (US 20210144750), HAN et al. (US 20240098782), and HWANG et al. (US 20200351136) as applied to claims 1 above, and further in view of LEE et al. (US 20210320759).
Regarding claim 7, CAO does not teach the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to transmit the sidelink communications at least in part by transmitting each code block group (CBG) transmission of multiple frequency division multiplexed (FDM) CBG transmissions over the multiple contiguous subchannels of one of the subset of the multiple RB sets.
But, LEE et al. (US 20210320759) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to transmit the sidelink communications at least in part by transmitting each code block group (CBG) transmission of multiple frequency division multiplexed (FDM) CBG transmissions over the multiple contiguous subchannels of one of the subset of the multiple RB sets (par. 15, 64, 118).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by LEE in the system of CAO, HAN, and HWANG to provide CBG transmission.
The motivation would have been to improve the performance of the sidelink communication, transmission of feedback information (e.g., acknowledgment (ACK) or negative ACK (NACK)) for sidelink data may be performed (LEE par. 4).
Regarding claim 8, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 7, wherein a physical sidelink shared channel transmitted in the multiple contiguous subchannels of the one of the subset of the multiple RB sets (fig. 3, par. 97, 99, 185, the resource assigned to each PSSCH transmission may include more than 1 subchannel in the frequency domain… a set of resources 300, 302, 304, 306 reserved by an SCI contained in the initial resource 300).
However, CAO does not teach wherein each CBG transmission includes a physical sidelink control channel, having a distributed sidelink control information.
But, LEE et al. (US 20210320759) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein each CBG transmission includes a physical sidelink control channel, having a distributed sidelink control information (par. 160, 178).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by LEE in the system of CAO, HAN, and HWANG to provide CBG transmission.
The motivation would have been to improve the performance of the sidelink communication, transmission of feedback information (e.g., acknowledgment (ACK) or negative ACK (NACK)) for sidelink data may be performed (LEE par. 4).
Regarding claim 9, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 8, wherein the physical sidelink control channel is included in a leading subchannel of the multiple contiguous subchannels of each of the subset of the multiple RB sets (fig. 3, 19, par. 48, 49, 57, 97, 99, 104, 108, SCI in the PSCCH through the starting of the PSCCH pool).
Regarding claim 10, LEE et al. (US 20210320759) teaches the apparatus of claim 8, wherein the distributed sidelink control information indicates each of the multiple FDM CBG transmissions (par. 15, 64, 118).
Regarding claim 23, CAO does not teach the apparatus of claim 20, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to receive the sidelink communications at least in part by receiving each code block group (CBG) transmission of multiple frequency division multiplexed (FDM) CBG transmissions over one of at least a subset of the multiple RB sets.
But, LEE et al. (US 20210320759) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to receive the sidelink communications at least in part by receiving each code block group (CBG) transmission of multiple frequency division multiplexed (FDM) CBG transmissions over one of at least a subset of the multiple RB sets (par. 15, 64, 118).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by LEE in the system of CAO, HAN, and HWANG to provide CBG transmission.
The motivation would have been to improve the performance of the sidelink communication, transmission of feedback information (e.g., acknowledgment (ACK) or negative ACK (NACK)) for sidelink data may be performed (LEE par. 4).
Regarding claim 24, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 23, wherein a physical sidelink shared channel transmitted in multiple contiguous subchannels of the one of the subset of the multiple RB sets (fig. 3, par. 97, 99, 185, the resource assigned to each PSSCH transmission may include more than 1 subchannel in the frequency domain… a set of resources 300, 302, 304, 306 reserved by an SCI contained in the initial resource 300).
However, CAO does not teach wherein each CBG transmission includes a physical sidelink control channel, having the sidelink control information as distributed sidelink control information distributed in each RB set in the subset of the multiple RB sets.
But, LEE et al. (US 20210320759) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein each CBG transmission includes a physical sidelink control channel, having the sidelink control information as distributed sidelink control information distributed in each RB set in the subset of the multiple RB sets (par. 160, 178).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by LEE in the system of CAO, HAN, and HWANG to provide CBG transmission.
The motivation would have been to improve the performance of the sidelink communication, transmission of feedback information (e.g., acknowledgment (ACK) or negative ACK (NACK)) for sidelink data may be performed (LEE par. 4).
Regarding claim 25, LEE et al. (US 20210320759) teaches the apparatus of claim 24, wherein the distributed sidelink control information indicates each of the multiple FDM CBG transmissions (par. 15, 64, 118).
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CAO et al. (US 20210144750), HAN et al. (US 20240098782), and HWANG et al. (US 20200351136) as applied to claims 15 above, and further in view of LEE et al. (US 20190364585 herein LEE ‘585).
Regarding claim 16, CAO does not teach the apparatus of claim 15, wherein the amount of RB sets is indicated as an approximate ratio of the subset of the multiple RB sets to the multiple RB sets.
But, LEE et al. (US 20190364585 herein LEE ‘585) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the amount of RB sets is indicated as an approximate ratio of the subset of the multiple RB sets to the multiple RB sets (par. 154, 179).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by LEE et al. (US 20190364585 herein LEE ‘585) in the system of CAO, HAN, and HWANG to indicate the number of RBs.
The motivation would have been to improve the resource indication to apply for resource utilization.
Claim(s) 17-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CAO et al. (US 20210144750), HAN et al. (US 20240098782), and HWANG et al. (US 20200351136) as applied to claims 1, 15 above, and further in view of PAN et al. (US 20210251005 with foreign priority (CN) 201811303706.X filed on 11/02/2018).
Regarding claim 17, CAO et al. (US 20210144750) teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to prepare, based on the sidelink grant, sidelink communications for transmission over the multiple RB sets and over intra-cell guard bands between the multiple RB sets (par. 23, 28, transmitting a SL configured grant (CG) to a UE to configure one or more transmission resources available for SL transmissions by the UE that repeats on a periodic basis within each of a plurality of periods; par. 97, 99, The frequency domain resource configuration may include, for example, the active Bandwidth part (BWP) used for SL transmission and subchannels/Resource block group (RBG) of the BWP…frequency allocation corresponding to the RB that starts at RB index RB_{start}+m*N_{RB_in_subchannel} and with n_{subchannel} number of continuous RBs to be used; fig. 2, 3, par. 174, 176) , wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to transmit the sidelink communications over the subset of the multiple RB sets in the slot for which the LBT procedure succeeds and over a subset of the intra-cell guard bands associated with the subset of the multiple RB sets (par. 181, 182, 183, “If both conditions are satisfied, then the UE will trigger reselection of the resource(s) that overlap with the resource being reserved by another UE” and both conditions are not satisfied then the UE will perform transmission as in par. 121 in resource reserved as in par. 97, 99, in a subset of the multiple RB sets or a set of RBs in a subchannel of the multiple RBs in a multiple subchannels; par. 289, LBT).
However, CAO does not teach prepare over intra-cell guard bands between the multiple RB sets; transmit the sidelink communications over a subset of the intra-cell guard bands associated with the subset of the multiple RB sets.
But, PAN et al. (US 20210251005) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches prepare over intra-cell guard bands between the multiple RB sets (par. 63, 64, 81, the guard band PRB between the adjacent LBT channels may be used as the PRB for data transmission in the interlace of resource blocks, so that the guard band PRB between the adjacent LBT channels can be used for data transmission, thereby increasing transmission resource utilization in an unlicensed band); transmit the sidelink communications over a subset of the intra-cell guard bands associated with the subset of the multiple RB sets (par. 63, 64, the guard band PRB between the adjacent LBT channels may be used as the PRB for data transmission in the interlace of resource blocks, so that the guard band PRB between the adjacent LBT channels can be used for data transmission, thereby increasing transmission resource utilization in an unlicensed band).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by PAN in the system of CAO, HAN, and HWANG to use guard band for transmission.
The motivation would have been to increase transmission resource utilization in an unlicensed band.
Regarding claim 18, PAN et al. (US 20210251005) teaches the apparatus of claim 17, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to transmit, to the one or more other UEs, a configuration indicating to decode the sidelink communications in the subset of the intra-cell guard bands (par. 63, 64, 71, 72, the scheduled bandwidth allocated to the user equipment in the scheduling instruction transmitted by the network-side device is 40 MHz, and the set of interlace indices of resource blocks is interlace#0).
Regarding claim 19, PAN et al. (US 20210251005) teaches the apparatus of claim 18, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute the instructions to cause the apparatus to transmit the configuration indicating an ability to transmit sidelink communications in intra-cell guard bands (par. 63, 64, 74, 75, 78, the scheduling instruction transmitted by the network-side device may further include indication information in addition to the set of interlace indices of resource blocks and the scheduled bandwidth, where the indication information is used to indicate whether the guard band PRB is allowed to be used) and an indicator in sidelink control information indicating whether to decode the sidelink communications in the subset of the intra-cell guard bands (par. 63, 64, 71, 72, 74, 75, 78, it can be specified that the guard band PRB is disabled to be used for the first N time domain resources).
Claim(s) 26 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CAO et al. (US 20210144750), HAN et al. (US 20240098782), HWANG et al. (US 20200351136), and LEE et al. (US 20210320759) in further view of ZHANG (US 20230030664 with foreign priority 04/17/2020).
Regarding claim 26, CAO does not teach the apparatus of claim 24, wherein the distributed sidelink control information indicates resources of each of the subset of the multiple RB sets that is reserved for distributed sidelink control information.
But, ZHANG (US 20230030664) in a similar or same field of endeavor teaches wherein the distributed sidelink control information indicates resources of each of the subset of the multiple RB sets that is reserved for distributed sidelink control information (par. 25).
Thus, it would have been obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to implement the system or method as taught by ZHANG in the system of CAO, HAN, HWANG, and LEE to provide SCI resource.
The motivation would have been to provide dynamic SCI resource reservation.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-14 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
HE et al. (US 20220312465) teaches multiple contiguous subchannels in each of multiple resource block (RB) sets in a slot (fig. 2, par. 22, 23, 29, 35, 13 bits for full resource blocks, in one RB set including 2 sub-bands or subchannels); wherein the multiple contiguous subchannels in a given RB set of the multiple RB sets are contiguous in frequency within the given RB set (fig. 2, par. 22, 23, 29, 35, in one RB set including 2 sub-bands or subchannels);
Perform a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure each of the multiple RB sets in a the slot (fig. 2, par. 22, 23, 29, 35); the multiple contiguous subchannels in each of resource (fig. 2, par. 22, 23, 29, 35);
LIU et al. (US 20220338175) teaches when operating in Mode 1 with gNB allocating resources in an unlicensed spectrum is that the transmitter UE still has to perform an LBT procedure before transmitting (par. 63).
OZTURK et al. (US 20220201760) teaches In both mode 1 and mode 2, a Tx UE may use an LBT procedure on at least one sidelink channel (par. 62).
MYUNG et al. (US 20210360673) teaches When type 1 LBT is referred to as a random back-off-based LBT and type 2 LBT is referred to as a short one-shot LBT for 25 us, each mode may be set to an upper layer signal, RRC, and mode 1, mode 2, or both may be dynamically indicated through a UL grant to the UE (par. 596).
HAN et al. (US 20240008077) teaches the second specific aspect of the LBT mechanism for sidelink transmissions is the actions of a terminal device responsive to the detected consistent LBT failure for SLU…UE action needs to be designed for mode 1 and mode 2 respectively, especially for the case that per-RP LBT failure is detected (par. 53).
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/THINH D TRAN/for /Thinh Tran/, Patent Examiner of Art Unit 2466 04/02/2026