Detailed Action
The office action is in response to the communications filed on 05/29/2026.
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 .
Claims Status
Claims 1-22 are allowed.
Claims 24 and 28 have been cancelled.
Claims 23 and 27 have been amended.
Claims 23, 25-27, and 29-30 are pending.
Prior Art Made of Record
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Chen (US Publication No. 2022/0045800), the prior art discloses The NR V2X system supports broadcast, multicast, and unicast communications of the terminals on the Sidelink interface; see ¶ 13. When multicast or unicast communication is adopted, a receiving terminal can send HARQ feedback to a sending terminal so that the sending terminal can perform HARQ retransmission; see ¶ 13.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-22 are allowed.
Response to Arguments
Applicant remarks, filed on 05/29/2026, with respect to claim 23 have been fully considered and are persuasive. However, a new ground of rejection is set forth below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under AIA 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 23 and 27 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al. (Publication No. US 2021/0105126, hereinafter referred to as Yi) in view of Kim et al. (US Publication No. 2021/0006318, hereinafter referred to as Kim).
Regarding Claims 23 and 27, Yi discloses receiving, from a network node, one or more radio resource control (RRC) messages that indicate a first configuration configuring the first UE for transmission of a unicast message associated with a first priority, and a second configuration configuring the first UE for transmission of a multicast message associated with a second priority different than the first priority, the first configuration allocating a first set of transmission resources for the unicast message and the second configuration allocating a second set of transmission resources for the multicast message, the first set of transmission resources being non-overlapping with the second set of transmission resources (A base station [network node] configure, via RRC messages, a wireless device with a first resource pool for use by unicast and a second resource pool for use by groupcast [multicast], wherein data associated with a first priority use the first resource pool and data associated with a second priority use a second resource pool; see figure 18 & ¶¶ 218/220. The resource pool may be continuous/non-continuous [non-overlapping] in the frequency domain and/or the time domain; see figure 18 & ¶ 215.);
Yi discloses transmitting traffic associates with the received configuration (¶ 221), but fails to explicitly disclose transmitting the unicast message to a second UE via the first set of transmission resources in accordance with the first priority being higher than the second priority or transmitting the multicast message to a group of UEs, that includes the second UE, via the second set of transmission resources in accordance with the second priority being higher than the first priority; and receiving, from the second UE, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback message in accordance with the one of the unicast message or the multicast message that was transmitted. However, in analogous art, Kim discloses a first terminal may transmit data to a second terminal, and the second terminal may transmit feedback information for the data to the first terminal; see ¶ 4. Furthermore, the priority may be determined according to the type of SL/UL transmission (e.g., unicast, groupcast, or broadcast). As an example, the priorities may be defined in the order of broadcast, groupcast, and unicast; ¶ 235. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yi prioritization system with the prioritization scheme of Kim in order to improve the unicast performance of the device.
Claims 25-26 and 29-30 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yi et al. (Publication No. US 2021/0105126, hereinafter referred to as Yi) in view of Kim et al. (US Publication No. 2021/0006318, hereinafter referred to as Kim and further in view of Kim et al. (Publication No. US 2024/0224301, hereinafter referred as Kim II).
Regarding Claims 25 and 29, Yi fails to discloses that the first priority is higher than the second priority; the first UE transmits the unicast message based on the first priority being higher than the second priority; and the HARQ feedback message includes HARQ feedback for the unicast message. However, in analogous art, Kim II discloses that the UE may determine that if the first sidelink data is received through unicast and the second sidelink data is transmitted through groupcast, the transmission for the first sidelink data transmitted in the unicast type is prioritized. Of course, the opposite case is also possible; see ¶ 0143. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yi prioritization system with the prioritization mechanism in order to performing sidelink communication using next-generation radio access technology; see ¶ 0011.
Regarding Claims 26 and 30, Yi fails to discloses that the second priority is higher than the first priority; the first UE transmits the multicast message based on the second priority being higher than the first priority; and the HARQ feedback message includes HARQ feedback for the multicast message. However, in analogous art, Kim II discloses that the UE may determine that if the first sidelink data is received through unicast and the second sidelink data is transmitted through groupcast, the transmission for the first sidelink data transmitted in the unicast type is prioritized. Of course, the opposite case is also possible; see ¶ 0143. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yi prioritization system with the prioritization mechanism in order to performing sidelink communication using next-generation radio access technology; see ¶ 0011.
Conclusion
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/H.R/Examiner, Art Unit 2472
/KEVIN T BATES/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2472
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