DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 .
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.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A second 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 5 Jan 2026 has been entered.
Priority
No foreign priority or domestic benefit is claimed by the Application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 8 Aug 2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention I in the reply filed on 30 Sept 2024 is acknowledged.
Response to Arguments
Regarding the independent claims, the Reply correctly notes that Harada does not teach a PSSCH, but rather a PUSCH, as transmitting the transport block at issue. Reply, 12 (citing Harada, ¶¶50, 57, 58). However, the independent claims are rejected based upon a combination of references and Ye (citing in PTO-892 dated 24 Oct 2024) teaches PSSCH resources for both LTE and NR. As a result, the obviousness rejections of the independent claims are maintained.
Regarding claims 5, 20, 35, and 42, the Reply did not address the teachings of Jiang. As a result, while the indefiniteness rejections are withdrawn, the obviousness rejections are maintained.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.
Claims 1-4, 6, 16-19, 21, 31-34, 36, 38-41 and 43 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (US 20240032075) in view of Harada (US 20220330239).
Regarding claims 1, 16, 31, and 38, Ye teaches a method, first sidelink user equipment (UE), and non-transitory computer readable medium comprising: a memory storing program code; a transceiver; and at least one processor coupled to the memory and the transceiver, wherein the first sidelink UE is configured to:
monitor a resource pool (RP) associated with a slot . . . (Ye, ¶¶32, 36 – UE senses both a NR SL resource pool 204 and an LTE SL resource pool; Ye, figure 2 and ¶76 – resources in units of time called slots);
failing to receive, from a second sidelink UE, a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) communication. . . (Ye, ¶19 – NR SL resource pool and LTE resource pool may overlap, which may interfere with a UE’s ability to receive a communication on the overlapping resources; Ye, ¶30 – both NR and LTE PSSCHs); and
receive, from a second sidelink UE, the PSSCH communication via the RP . . . (Ye, ¶30 – receiver UE detects either NR or LTE PSSCH).
Ye does not explicitly teach (1) a slot “including a first sub-slot at a first time and at least a first portion of a second sub-slot at a second time, wherein the first time is different from the second time and wherein the first sub-slot and the second sub-slot overlap at least one trailing symbol of the slot, ” (2) “failing to receive. . . a [communication] via the RP starting at the first sub-slot in response to an unsuccessful listen before talk (LBT) procedure prior to the slot,” or (3) “the [communication] starting at the second sub-slot in response to a successful LBT after the first sub-slot.” However, Harada teaches (1) multiple mini-slots within a slot, where the mini-slots overlap with one or more trailing symbols within the slot. Harada, ¶57 (in the example shown in figure 5, the first slot contains 3 mini-slots where a PUSCH may be scheduled and the PUSCHs indicated by “B” and “C” overlap with the trailing symbols of the slot). Harada also teaches executing a LBT for each mini-slot. Id. at ¶58 and figure 5 (the UE attempts LBT at each lettered indictor [i.e. A, B, C, and D] until is successfully acquires access to the channel [i.e. the same process shown in figure 3, except at the mini-slot level instead of the slot level]). Most pertinent to the claimed embodiment, Harada also teaches executing LBT for each mini-slot after the first slot. Id. at ¶60 (bottom portion of figure 6). So like the claimed invention, if the UE has been unsuccessful in all LBT attempts in the first slot of figure 6, but is successful in the second mini-slot of the second slot, the UE transmits a physical shared channel. The base station will monitor for reception of the PUSCH. Id. at ¶193 and e.g. figure 6 (PDCCH grants resources for PUSCH). Harada also teaches a PUSCH transmitting a transport block (TB). Id. at ¶50. At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to enable successive LBT attempts at the partial-slot level for transmission of a transport block, as taught by Harada, when executing a sidelink transmission, as taught by Ye, in order to prevent the wasting an entire slot when LBT is unsuccessful. Harada, ¶58.
Regarding claims 2, 17, 32, and 39, the combination of Ye and Harada also teaches receiving, from a network unit, a configured grant indicating resources associated with the RP. Ye, ¶21 (the network schedules SL resources of the SL resource pool).
Regarding claims 3, 18, 33, and 40, the combination of Ye and Farag also teaches wherein the monitoring the RP is based on a number of sub-slots in the slot. Harada, figure 6 (base station monitors each TTI that it granted for PUSCH transmission, where a PUSCH transmission may occur at the mini-slot level); Ye, ¶¶35-35 (UE senses the resources of both the LTE and NR SL resource pools defined by the reservation signaling); Ye, figure 2 (the slots 208 or the subframes 210 represent “a number of one or more sub-slots” as required by the claims).
Regarding claims 4, 19, 34, and 41, the combination of Ye and Harada also teaches wherein the monitoring the RP is based on an interference level associated with the second sidelink UE. Ye, ¶¶35-35 (UE senses SL resource pools based on the reservation signaling); Ye, ¶78 (UE selects NR SL resources that do not overlap [i.e. experience interference] with the LTE SL pool).
Regarding claims 6, 21, 36, and 43, the combination of Ye and Harada also teaches wherein the RP shares common resources associated with sidelink control information (SCI). Harada, ¶77 (shared channels [i.e. common resources], PSSCH); Ye, ¶34 (a UE sensing the SCI in a PSSCH sent by a peer UE on SL pool resources).
Claims 5, 20, 35, and 42 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye in view of Harada (both of record), and further in view of Jiang (US 20180098342).
Regarding claims 5, 20, 35, and 42, the combination of Ye and Harada teaches method of claim 1, the first sidelink UE of claim 16, the medium of claim 31, and the UE of claim 38, “wherein the slot includes the first sub-slot and the first portion of the second sub-slot is a first slot” and “wherein a second portion of the second sub-slot overlaps the at least one leading symbol of a second slot . . .” Ye, figure 2 (partial overlap in time between slots 208 of NR resource pool 204 and subframes 210, which is 2 slots, of LTE resource pool 206); Harada, ¶66 (a slot contains a number of symbols). As a result, by having entire slots overlap, one or more symbols in the slots overlap).
The combination of Ye and Harada does not explicitly teach the second sub-slot overlapping “at least one leading symbol of a second slot that is adjacent to the first slot.” Ye does note that the resources of the NR SL resource pool and the LTE resource pool may “not neatly align” with each other. Ye, ¶80. Jiang further describes NR and LTE slot/symbol alignment as a result of different subcarrier spacing and cyclic prefix sizes. Jiang, ¶50. In one example, for subcarrier spacing of 60 kHz, slots with normal cyclic prefix (NCP) are misaligned with slots with an extended cyclic prefix (ECP). Jiang, ¶60-66 and figure 6. The result is slot0 with a normal cyclic prefix overlaps with both the slot0 and slot1 with extended cyclic prefixes. Jiang, ¶67 and figure 6 (shown in 605). At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to identify the misalignment of slots, as taught by Jiang, within the NR and LTE resource pools, taught by the combination of Ye and Harada, in order to recognize when the first symbol of the adjacent slot needs to be discarded due to the overlap. Jiang, ¶83.
Claims 7, 22, 37, and 44 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye in view of Harada (both of record), and further in view of Farag (US 20220095280).
Regarding claims 7, 22, 37, and 44, the combination of Ye and Harada teaches the method of claim 1, the first sidelink UE of claim 16, the medium of claim 31, and the UE of claim 38, but does not explicitly teach “wherein the RP shares common resources associated with a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH).” However, Farag teaches PSFCH resources for groupcast feedback being UE-common. Farag, ¶211. At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to enable the NR resource pool, taught by the combination of Ye and Harada, to provide a PSFCH, as taught by Farag, in order to allocate sidelink resources for feedback. Id. at ¶142.
Claims 8 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (US 20240032075) in view of Harada (of record), and further in view of Blasco Serrano (US 20240244585).
Regarding claims 8 and 23, the combination of Ye and Harada teaches the method of claim 1, the first sidelink UE of claim 16, and receiving . . .an indicator indicating to monitor the RP, wherein the monitoring the RP is based on the indicator. Ye, ¶¶334-35 (UE receives configuration information and reservation signaling, which determine the resources that the UE will sense in NR SL resource pool and LTE SL resource pool). The combination of Ye and Harada does not explicitly teach its configuration information and reservation signaling coming “from a network unit,” as required by claims 8 and 23. However, Blasco Serrano teaches a network node providing the control messages and grants for sidelink resources. Blasco Serrano, ¶64; see also id. at ¶111. At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have a network node, as taught by Blasco Serrano, send the configuration information and reservation signaling, taught by the combination of Ye and Harada, in order to allocate sidelink resource in compliance with mode 1’s network-based resource allocation. Id. at ¶33.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure, including figures 3 and 6F of Sheng and figure 14 of Kim.
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/Benjamin Lamont/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461
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