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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 1/12/26 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments pertaining to the claims as amended are believed to have been addressed in the advisory action that was previously issued.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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) 1,9,13,15,18-20,3,6-8,11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Publication No. 2019/0150135 A1 to Lee et al., in view of 3GPP TSG RAN WG2 Meeting #106, R2-1906486 (provided through IDS, hereinafter “3GPP”), further in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2020/0169985 A1 to Lei.
As to claim 13, Lee discloses
A user equipment (UE) comprising: one or more processors; a transceiver coupled to the one or more processors, the transceiver capable of utilizing at least a first radio access (RA) of the UE (Fig. 11: first and second UEs and network/BS/eNB, wherein first UE, i.e., the recited “user equipment UE”, configured to operate in “first RAT”); and memory coupled to the one or more processors, the memory storing thereon computer- readable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations, the operations comprising (Fig. 11: first and second UEs and network/BS/eNB; Figs. 1,5, paragraphs 83, 34-39, UE and BSs):
operating the first RA of the first UE in a resource selection mode for sidelink communications (Figs. 8-11, paragraphs 120-137, 149-156: disclosing first UE, i.e., the recited “the first UE”, configured to operate in “first RAT” [“S111”]); receiving, from a second UE operating a second RA in a resource selection mode, sidelink resource information including sidelink resources selected in the second RA for sidelink communications (Figs. 8-11, paragraphs 120-137, 149-156: disclosing second UE, i.e., the recited “second UE”, configured to operate in “second RAT” [“S111”], sending S113 “SLSS/PSBCH” message [“SL resource information”] containing second RAT communication related resources used by the second RAT [paragraph 153], teaching this limitation); and
selecting sidelink resources in the first RA for sidelink communications based at least in part on the sidelink resource information (paragraph 154, where “first UE may transmit a signal V2V signal using a resource except for the resource used by the second UE (S114)”, teaching this limitation; also see, e.g., paragraphs 134-138, where the “first UE” may decide to “reduce transmission power” on resources that overlap with the second UE/RAT resources [i.e., “based at least in part on the SL resource information”], instead of refraining from selecting those resources, further teaching an embodiment of this limitation);
wherein selecting the sidelink resources in the first RA for the sidelink communications based at least in part on the sidelink resource information includes: selecting one or more sidelink resources from one or more sidelink resources recommended by the second UE in the sidelink resource information in the first RA for the sidelink communications.
(Figs. 8-11, paragraphs 120-137, 149-156: disclosing second UE, i.e., the recited “second UE”, configured to operate in “second RAT” [“S111”], sending S113 “SLSS/PSBCH” message containing second RAT communication related resources used by the second RAT [paragraph 153], i.e., “one or more SL resources recommended by the second UE in the SL resource information”; see, e.g., paragraphs 133-138, in particular, paragraph 136, where the “first UE”/”LTE_V2V UE” may decide to “reduce transmission power” on resources that overlap with the second UE/RAT resources, i.e., “on the NR_V2V communication-related resource pool [which would have been indicated/recommended through the SLSS/PBCH message sent from the second UE/NR_V2V-UE in Figs. 9/11]”, such overlapping resources being an embodiment of “one or more sidelink resources recommended by the second UE in the sidelink resource information”, thus teaching that the first UE would be “selecting one or more sidelink resources from one or more sidelink resources recommended by the second UE in the sidelink resource information”, where such selected SL resource would be used for communicating in the first RAT, i.e., LTE_V2V, teaching this limitation).
Lee does not appear to explicitly disclose operating in an autonomous resource selection mode for sidelink communications.
3GPP discloses operating in an autonomous resource selection mode for sidelink communications (Observations 1 and 2; Proposal 2: “autonomous mode” for sidelink communications).
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate in, combine or modify, Lee’s teaching above, in particular, “operating the first RA of the first UE in a resource selection mode for sidelink communications” and “receiving, from a second UE operating a second RA in a resource selection mode …” so that the first UE configured with the first RA and the second UE operating a second RA disclosed therein, in particular, the respective “resource selection mode”, may be characterized by and operate in the autonomous mode disclosed in 3gpp as being implemented in sidelink UEs such as the UEs in Lee, to reject “operating the first RA of the first UE in an autonomous resource selection mode for sidelink communications” and “receiving, from a second UE operating a second RA in the autonomous resource selection mode …” The cited references are directed to wireless communication infrastructures, that feature sidelink communication methodologies such as NR V2X and LTE V2X. The suggestion/motivation would have been to improve resource allocation and scheduling in sidelink communications (Lee, paragraphs 1-20; 3GPP, 1. Introduction). Furthermore, note that with regard to the claimed invention, especially the limitation above, all of the claimed elements have been shown to be known in the cited art, and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art as of and before the effective filing date.
Lee and 3gpp do not appear to explicitly disclose “wherein the first RA and the second RA are NR-Ras”.
Lei discloses “wherein the first RA and the second RA are NR-Ras” (Figs. 1 and 4, paragraph 31, disclosing that two UEs/RAs being both NR, teaching this limitation).
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate in, combine or modify, Lee and 3GPP’s combined teaching set forth above, with Lei’s teaching of the first and second RAs being NR-RAs, to reject this claim, since the resources respectively associated with the first and second RAs disclosed in Lee and 3gpp may correspond to resources associated with two different instances of NR-RA such as the scenario disclosed in Lei, thus rendering these cited teachings combinable with each other to reject this claim. The cited references are directed to wireless communication infrastructures, that feature sidelink communication methodologies such as NR V2X and LTE V2X. The suggestion/motivation would have been to improve resource allocation and scheduling in sidelink communications (Lee, paragraphs 1-20; 3GPP, 1. Introduction; Lei, paragraphs 1-13, 24-31). Furthermore, note that with regard to the claimed invention, especially the limitation above, all of the claimed elements have been shown to be known in the cited art, and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art as of and before the effective filing date.
AS to claims 1, 9, see rejection for claim 13.
As to claim 15, Lee, Lei and 3gpp teach the UE as in the parent claim 13.
Lee further discloses wherein selecting the sidelink resources in the first RA for the sidelink communications based at least in part on the sidelink resource information includes selecting the sidelink resources in the first RA that avoid time-overlapping communications with the second UE based on the sidelink resource information. (Figs. 8-11, paragraphs 120-137, 149-156: disclosing second UE, i.e., the recited “second UE”, configured to operate in “second RAT” [“S111”], sending S113 “SLSS/PSBCH” message containing second RAT communication related resources used by the second RAT [paragraph 153]; paragraphs 135, 154, where “first UE may transmit a signal V2V signal using a resource except for the resource used by the second UE (S114)”, teaching this limitation)
As to claim 18, Lee, Lei and 3gpp teach the UE as in the parent claim 13.
Lee further discloses wherein receiving, from the second UE having the second RA, the sidelink resource information includes at least one of: receiving the sidelink resource information from the second UE periodically, receiving the sidelink resource information from the second UE based on a triggering event, or receiving the sidelink resource information from the second UE when priority of the sidelink communications for the sidelink resources selected in the second RA is higher than a threshold level. (Figs. 8-11, paragraphs 120-137, 149-156: the second UE transmitting the signal S113 [“sidelink resource information”] to the first UE after being triggered by S112)
As to claim 19, Lee, Lei and 3gpp teach the UE as in the parent claim 18.
Lee does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein the triggering event includes at least one of: a sidelink resource overlap with the sidelink resources selected in the second RA, or a collision of a sidelink transmission.
3gpp discloses wherein the triggering event includes at least one of: a sidelink resource overlap with the sidelink resources selected in the second RA, or a collision of a sidelink transmission. (Observation 3: “overlap”)
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate in, combine or modify, Lee’s teaching above, so that the triggering event disclosed therein (Fig. 11, S112) is characterized by the overlap disclosed in 3gpp, to reject this limitation. The cited references are directed to wireless communication infrastructures. The suggestion/motivation would have been to improve resource allocation and scheduling in sidelink communications (Lee, paragraphs 1-20; 3GPP, 1. Introduction). Furthermore, note that with regard to the claimed invention, especially the limitation above, all of the claimed elements have been shown to be known in the cited art, and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art as of and before the effective filing date.
As to claim 20, Lee, Lei and 3gpp teach the UE as in the parent claim 13.
Lee further discloses wherein the sidelink resource selection information includes at least one of: a periodicity of the sidelink resource selected in the second RA, a time location of the sidelink resource selected in the second RA, a frequency location of the sidelink resource selected in the second RA (Figs. 8-11, paragraphs 120-137, 149-156, in particular, paragraph 153), a size of the sidelink resource selected in the second RA, priority of an intended sidelink TB for the sidelink resource selected in the second RA, a new radio (NR) slot of the sidelink resource selected in the second RA, or a long-term evolution (LTE) subframe timing of the sidelink resource selected in the second RA.
As to claims 11, see rejections for claims 15.
As to claims 3,6-8, see rejections for claims 15,18-20.
Conclusion
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/CHI TANG P CHENG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463