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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 06/17/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, submitted on 05/18/2026, have been considered but they are not persuasive.
With regards to independent claims 1 and 15:
Applicant submitted that the combination of Ryu and Jiang does not disclose "decode the received sidelink data at a MAC layer of the first terminal equipment; determine, at the MAC layer of the first terminal equipment, a decoding result for the received sidelink data; at the MAC layer, instruct a physical layer of the first terminal equipment to generate HARQ feedback information, when a value of a one-bit HARQ feedback indicator field in the sidelink control information is set to 1 and NACK-only is indicated by the sidelink control information and when the first terminal equipment is within a communication range of the second terminal equipment and the decoding result is being not correctly decoded at the MAC layer" as recited in claim 1. See Remarks 6-7. The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
The combination of Ryu and Jiang, particularly Ryu ([0135, 0152]) discloses a reception UE capable of receiving and decoding sidelink data from a transmission UE. The reception UE provides HARQ feedback (ACK/NACK information) to the transmission UE according to the result of the decoding.
According to Ryu ([0260, 0426, 0432-0433]), the PHY layer at the reception UE is configured/instructed to provide HARQ feedback, including NACK-only when decoding fails, in accordance with the SL HARQ feedback enabling information obtained from the transmission UE via SCI. A 1-bit indicator of whether to enable HARQ operation via SCI is set to ‘0’ to denote disabling of SL HARQ operation and set to ‘1’ to denote enabling of SL HARQ operation. UEs may transmit NACK information only when the second UE is at a certain range/distance.
Ryu discusses that the HARQ operations are performed cooperatively by the physical PHY and MAC layers. Such operations may involve decoding received data and generating HARQ ACK/NACK feedback, etc. Ryu’s Fig. 3 discloses a protocol stack at the UE for handling operations such as HARQ. It is well known in the art that such protocols mutually interact to process inbound/outbound data such as HARQ data.
Jiang demonstrates the interaction between MAC and PHY layers involving sidelink HARQ processes. More particularly, Jiang ([0005, 0015, 0198]) discloses that the MAC sublayer is responsible for HARQ operations (i.e. encoding outgoing and decoding incoming HARQ information for sidelink data). The PSFCH channel is used for sidelink HARQ transmissions. HARQ feedback selection 1 is to only feed back a NACK, and the HARQ feedback selection 2 is to feed back both an ACK and a NACK. Since MAC is positioned above the PHY layer as in Fig. 3, and is the one processing HARQ information, then it will forward the result of the sidelink HARQ to the the PHY layer in order to further process HARQ bits for transmission over the sidelink channel.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 6-8, 13, 15, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ryu et al. (US 20220407634) in view of Jiang et al. (US 20250184966).
Regarding claim 1, Ryu discloses an information feedback apparatus, applicable to a first terminal equipment side, the apparatus comprising: a memory; and processor circuitry coupled to the memory (Figs. 2A, 24-26) and configured to:
receive sidelink control information, the sidelink control information being used to indicate the first terminal equipment to perform hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback, wherein HARQ feedback information comprises only NACK (Negative acknowledgment) (reception UE may not transmit ACK when the decoding of PSSCH transmitted from the transmission UE is successful, and transmit NACK via PSFCH only when decoding failed; [0135].
transmission UE may transmit, to the reception UE, SL HARQ feedback enabling information via SCI; [0432]),
receive sidelink data transmitted by a second terminal equipment; decode the received sidelink data at the first terminal equipment (reception UE may transmit ACK via PSFCH when decoding of PSSCH transmitted from an NR V2X transmission UE is successful; [0135]);
determine, at the first terminal equipment, a decoding result for the received sidelink data (the V2X reception UE may transmit ACK/NACK information indicating success or failure of decoding of SL data to the V2X transmission UE on PSFCH; [0152]);
at the first terminal equipment, instruct a physical layer of the first terminal equipment to generate HARQ feedback information, when a value of a one-bit HARQ feedback indicator field in the sidelink control information is set to 1 (transmission UE may transmit, to the reception UE, a 1-bit indicator of whether to enable HARQ operation via SCI. ‘0’ may denote disabling of SL HARQ operation and ‘1’ may denote enabling of SL HARQ operation; [0426]) and
NACK-only is indicated by the sidelink control information (reception UE may transmit NACK via PSFCH only when decoding failed; [0135]
Transmission UE may transmit, to the reception UE, SL HARQ feedback enabling information via SCI. Upon receiving SCI, the physical layer and MAC layer of the reception UE may not transmit PSFCH according to ‘00’ indicator of SCI. Upon receiving SCI, the physical layer and MAC layer of the reception UE may not transmit PSFCH according to ‘00’ indicator of SCI even when a cast type is not identified; [0432-0433]) and
when the first terminal equipment is within a communication range of the second terminal equipment and the decoding result is being not correctly decoded at the first terminal equipment (NACK information may be transmitted only when decoding of received PSSCH is failed. UEs transmitting NACK information may transmit the NACK information only when a specific condition is satisfied. UE-B and UE-C may determine an additional condition. Such a condition may be a distance to the UE-A; [0260]); and
at the physical layer, generate NACK and transmit the generated NACK to the second terminal equipment when the first terminal equipment is within the communication range of the second terminal equipment and the sidelink data is not correctly decoded (NACK information may be transmitted only when decoding of received PSSCH is failed. UEs transmitting NACK information may transmit the NACK information only when a specific condition is satisfied. UE-B and UE-C may determine an additional condition. Such a condition may be a distance to the UE-A; [0260]).
Ryu does not expressly disclose decode received data at a MAC layer; and determine, at the MAC layer, a decoding result for the received data; at the MAC layer, instruct a physical layer to generate HARQ feedback information when the decoding result is being not correctly decoded at the MAC layer.
In an analogous art, Jiang discloses decode received data at a MAC layer; and determine, at the MAC layer, a decoding result for the received data (The MAC sublayer 302 provides multiplexing between a logical channel and a transport channel. The MAC sublayer 302 is also responsible for allocating between first communication nodes various radio resources (i.e., resource block) in a cell. The MAC sublayer 302 is also in charge of HARQ operation; [0198]);
at the MAC layer, instruct a physical layer to generate HARQ feedback information when the decoding result is being not correctly decoded at the MAC layer (PSFCH channel is introduced for HARQ transmission on sidelink. the HARQ feedback selection 1 is to only feed back a NACK, and the HARQ feedback selection 2 is to feed back both an ACK and a NACK; [0005, 0015].
The L1 is called PHY 301 in the present disclosure. The layer 2 (L2) 305 is above the PHY 301, and is in charge of a link between a first communication node and a second communication node, as well as two UEs via the PHY 301. L2 305 comprises a Medium Access Control (MAC) sublayer 302. The MAC sublayer 302 is also in charge of HARQ operation; [0198]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to add the features taught by Jiang into the system of Ryu in order to in order to improve the transmission and spectral efficiency of a feedback channel for a sidelink (Jiang; [0012]).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Ryu and Jiang, particularly Ryu discloses wherein the sidelink control information further used to indicate the first terminal equipment to perform groupcast communication with HARQ feedback information only comprising NACK (When HARQ-ACK/NACK is mentioned in the embodiments of the disclosure, PSSCH may be unicast or groupcast PSSCH configured or indicated to transmit HARQ-ACK/NACK; [0296]).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Ryu and Jiang, particularly Ryu discloses wherein the sidelink control information further comprises: location information of the second terminal equipment and/or the communication range (SCI includes information about a location of the transmission UE (for example, zone ID or at least one of altitude or latitude of the transmission UE) and a range requirement; [0438]).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Ryu and Jiang, particularly Ryu discloses wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to perform the HARQ feedback according to the location information of the second terminal equipment and/or the communication range in the sidelink control information (NACK information may be transmitted only when decoding of received PSSCH is failed. UEs transmitting NACK information may transmit the NACK information only when a specific condition is satisfied. UE-B and UE-C may determine an additional condition. Such a condition may be a distance to the UE-A; [0260]).
Regarding claim 13, the combination of Ryu and Jiang, particularly Ryu discloses when the first terminal equipment is within the communication range of the second terminal equipment and the sidelink data is not correctly decoded, determine at an MAC layer whether a layer 1 destination address ID indicated in a sidelink control information (SCI) is equal to lower 16 bits of a layer 2 ID of the first terminal equipment; and when a determination result is yes, generate HARQ feedback, and transmit the generated HARQ feedback information to the second terminal equipment (transmission UE may set an indicator to ‘1’ and transmit the source ID configured of 8 bits and the destination ID configured of 16 bits to the reception UE via SCI. Here, when the even number of source ID and/or destination ID are detected, the physical layer of the reception UE may determine unicast communication. When the odd number of source ID and/or destination ID are detected, the physical layer of the reception UE may determine groupcast communication. As for another example, the source ID configured of 8 bits and the destination ID configured of 16 bits may be converted into a decimal number and when the source ID and/or destination ID is equal to or greater than a certain threshold value (or greater than the threshold value), the physical layer of the reception UE may determine unicast communication; [0437]).
Regarding claim 15, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 1.
Regarding claim 19, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 6.
Regarding claim 20, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 7.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Jiang et al. (US 20250274226), “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR USING HARQ IN WIRELESS COMMUNINCATIONS.”
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OUSSAMA ROUDANI whose telephone number is (571)272-4727. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, UN C CHO can be reached on (571) 272 7919. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/OUSSAMA ROUDANI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2413
Prosecution Insights