DETAILED ACTION
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 .
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 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 7/7/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1, 5-6, 10-22 and 24-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over R1-1911887 “Sidelink physical layer procedures for NR V2X” (hereinafter Huawei) in view of US 2023/0007670 (hereinafter Lee) and US 2022/0416969 (hereinafter Lee2).
Regarding claims 1, 16, 29 and 30, Huawei teaches a method for wireless communication at a first user equipment (UE), comprising: receiving, from a second UE, sidelink control information over a sidelink communication link between the first UE and the second UE (section 3, implicit; SCI; PSCCH), wherein a bandwidth of the sidelink communication link spans one or more sub-channels (proposal 2; sub-channel is used as the minimum granularity in frequency domain for the sensing for PSSCH resource selection); determining a precoding resource block group (PRG) size for communications over the sidelink communication link based at least in part on the sidelink control information (the configuration carried out using PC5-RRC, See proposal 2 on the top of page 2; for equivalency of PRG with PRB level bundling size see page 1, section 2.1, lines 4-5, “PRB bundling refers to bundling PRBs into PRB groups (PRGs)”; it is noted that in the general context of the claim, PC5-RRC is signaling received from the second UE and contains information related to the control of sidelink); and receiving, from the second UE, a sidelink message via the sidelink communication link based at least in part on the determined PRG size (section 3, implicit; SCI; PSCCH).
Huawei does not explicitly teach determining a precoding resource block group (PRG) size for communications over the sidelink communication link based at least in part on a comparison between a sub-channel bandwidth of the one or more sub-channels of the sidelink communication link and one or more thresholds, wherein the PRG size is a first value based at least in part on the sub-channel bandwidth satisfying the one or more thresholds, or a second value based at least in part on the sub-channel bandwidth failing to satisfy the one or more thresholds, the first value different from the second value.
However, Lee teaches determining a precoding resource block group (PRG) size for communications over the sidelink communication link based at least in part on a comparison between a sub-channel bandwidth of the one or more sub-channels of the sidelink communication link and one or more thresholds ([0235]-[0238]: details if the number of subchannels used by the TX UE for PSSCH transmission is less than or equal to a pre-configured threshold, the TX UE may apply the PRG for each pre-configured number of RBs. For example, if the number of subchannels used by the TX UE for PSSCH transmission is greater than or equal to a pre-configured threshold, the TX UE may apply the PRG for each subchannel size unit).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Huawei to incorporate the teachings of Lee and include a precoding resource block group (PRG) size for communications over the sidelink communication link based at least in part on a comparison between a sub-channel bandwidth of the one or more sub-channels of the sidelink communication link and one or more thresholds of Lee with Huawei. Doing so may efficiently perform SL communication (Lee, at paragraph [0017]).
Moreover, Lee2 teaches wherein the PRG size is a first value based at least in part on the sub-channel bandwidth satisfying the one or more thresholds ([0233]-[0244]: details the PRG size (candidate) value (selectable) of the TX UE or the RX UE may be configured/limited differently or independently based on the number of RBs included in a subchannel… if the size of the subchannel is less than or equal to a pre-configured threshold, the TX UE may apply the PRG for each pre-configured number of RBs. For example, if the size of the subchannel is greater than or equal to a pre-configured threshold, the TX UE may apply the PRG for each subchannel size unit), or a second value based at least in part on the sub-channel bandwidth failing to satisfy the one or more thresholds, the first value different from the second value ([0076]: no patentable weight because this limitation is claimed in the alternative).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Huawei to incorporate the teachings of Lee2 and include wherein the PRG size is a first value based at least in part on the sub-channel bandwidth satisfying the one or more thresholds, or a second value based at least in part on the sub-channel bandwidth failing to satisfy the one or more thresholds, the first value different from the second value of Lee2 with Huawei. Doing so may efficiently perform SL communication (Lee2, at paragraph [0017]).
Regarding claim 5, Huawei teaches further comprising: receiving a configuration message indicating one or more PRG sizes for communications over the sidelink communication link between the first UE and the second UE, wherein determining the PRG size is based at least in part on the one or more PRG sizes and the sidelink control information (proposal 2, page 2; configuration of parameter in a wireless system; PRG size).
Regarding 6 and 22, Huawei teaches further comprising: transmitting, to the second UE, a second sidelink message via the sidelink communication link based at least in part on determining the PRG size, wherein the second sidelink message is precoded based at least in part on the PRG size (section 2.1, precoder; transmitting use configured PRG size; PRB group; subchannel size).
Regarding claims 10 and 24, Huawei teaches wherein a plurality of PRGs of the sidelink message are arranged based at least in part on a first resource block of a set of resources allocated for the sidelink message (proposal 3; PRB with the smallest index of the allocated sub-channels for PSSCH).
Regarding claims 11 and 25, Huawei teaches wherein a plurality of PRGs of the sidelink message are arranged based at least in part on a sidelink common resource block (proposal 3; PRB with the smallest index may be viewed as common between the first and second UE).
Regarding claims 12 and 26, Huawei teaches determining a bandwidth difference between the sub-channel bandwidth and the physical sidelink control channel bandwidth for communications over the sidelink communication link; and determining one or more of the PRG size, the sub-channel bandwidth, or the physical sidelink control channel bandwidth based at least in part on the bandwidth difference being an integer multiple of the PRG size (proposal 2, page 2; last PRG in a plurality of PRGs based on the size of sub-channel of a PSSCH and the PSSCH).
Regarding claims 13 and 27, Huawei teaches further comprising: determining that the PRG size is equal to an additional bandwidth of a set of resources allocated for the sidelink message (proposal 2, page 2; PRG size may be the same as the size of a PSSCH sub-channel).
Regarding claims 14 and 28, Huawei teaches further comprising: determining that the PRG size is equal to a predefined value based at least in part on the PRG size being less than an additional bandwidth of a set of resources allocated for the sidelink message (proposal 2, page 2; predefined value for the PRG if it is smaller than a bandwidth of allocated resources, which means that the PRG can “fit” in the allocated resources (an example of a predefined value is the bandwidth of a PSSCH sub-channel)).
Regarding claim 15, Huawei teaches further comprising: determining that the PRG size is equal to an additional bandwidth of a set of resources allocated for the sidelink message (proposal 2; set of resources defined may be viewed as a PSSCH sub-channel).
Regarding claim 17, Huawei teaches, wherein identifying the sidelink configuration comprises: receiving, from the second UE, radio resource control signaling indicating the PRG size, wherein the PRG size is determined based at least in part on the radio resource control signaling (proposal 2, page 2; using PC5-RRC, and therefore radio resource control signaling).
Regarding claim 18, Huawei teaches, wherein identifying the sidelink configuration comprises: receiving an indication of one or more sets of resources withing the bandwidth allocated for communications over the sidelink communication link, wherein determining the PRG size is based at least in part on the indication of the one or more sets of resources allocated for communications over the sidelink communication link (proposal 2, page 2; determining the PRG size based on the PSSCH and the PSSCH sub-channel size).
Regarding claim 19, Huawei teaches, wherein identifying the sidelink configuration comprises: receiving a control message comprising an indication of the sub-channel bandwidth of the one or more subchannels of the sidelink communication link, wherein determining the PRG size is based at least in part on the indication of the sub-channel bandwidth (proposal 2, page 2; receiving control message with an indication of a sub-channel of PSSCH).
Regarding claim 20, Huawei teaches, wherein determining the PRG size comprises: determining the PRG size based at least in part on the sub-channel bandwidth satisfying one or more thresholds (proposal 2, page 2; sub-channel bandwidth of PSSCH when determining a PRG and carry out a comparison).
Regarding claim 21, Huawei teaches, further comprising: receiving a control message comprising an indication of a quantity of sub-channels associated with the sidelink communication link, wherein determining the PRG size is based at least in part on the indication of the quantity of sub-channels associated with the sidelink communication link (proposal 2, page 2; indication of the quantity is needed and implicit).
Claims 2 and 3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huawei in view of Lee and Lee2, further in view of US 2019/0075566 (hereinafter Kim) and CN 109 391 394 (hereinafter Beijing).
Regarding claim 2, Huawei does not explicitly teach identifying, from the sidelink control information, a modulation and coding scheme index for the communications over the sidelink communication link, wherein determining the PRG size is based at least in part on the modulation and coding scheme index.
However, Kim teaches identifying, from the sidelink control information, a modulation and coding scheme index for the communications over the sidelink communication link ([0076]: details an MCS index I_MCS may be obtained from SCI).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Huawei to incorporate the teachings of Kim and include identifying, from the sidelink control information, a modulation and coding scheme index for the communications over the sidelink communication link of Kim with Huawei. Doing so would improve an efficiency of a communication (Kim, at paragraph [0004]).
Moreover, Beijing teaches wherein determining the PRG size is based at least in part on the modulation and coding scheme index (paragraph [0005], table 1 in paragraph [0073]; PRG size, MCS index).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Huawei to incorporate the teachings of Beijing and include wherein determining the PRG size is based at least in part on the modulation and coding scheme index of Beijing with Huawei. Doing so would more effectively reduce signaling overhead (Beijing, at Summary).
Regarding claim 3, Huawei does not explicitly teach, wherein determining the PRG size comprises: determining the PRG size based at least in part on the modulation and coding scheme index satisfying one or more thresholds.
However, Beijing teaches wherein determining the PRG size comprises: determining the PRG size based at least in part on the modulation and coding scheme index satisfying one or more thresholds (paragraph [0005], table 1 in paragraph [0073]; threshold IMCS1, IMCS2, IMCS3 and IMCS4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Huawei to incorporate the teachings of Beijing and include wherein determining the PRG size comprises: determining the PRG size based at least in part on the modulation and coding scheme index satisfying one or more thresholds of Beijing with Huawei. Doing so would more effectively reduce signaling overhead (Beijing, at Summary).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huawei in view of Lee and Lee2, further in view of Beijing.
Regarding claim 4, Huawei does not explicitly teach, wherein the sidelink control information indicates the PRG size via a bit value, a sidelink control information format, a sidelink control information rate-matching offset, a target code rate, or any combination thereof, and wherein determining the PRG size is based at least in part on the bit value and a modulation and coding scheme index, the sidelink control information format, the sidelink control information rate-matching offset, the target code rate, or any combination thereof.
However, Lee2 teaches, sidelink control information indicates the PRG size via a bit value, a sidelink control information format, a sidelink control information rate-matching offset, a target code rate, or any combination thereof ([0231]: details the TX UE may transmit/signal information related to the PRG size used for PSSCH transmission to the RX UE through 2nd SCI format indicator/information. For example, the TX UE may transmit/signal information related to the PRG size used for PSSCH transmission to the RX UE through the 2nd SCI format indicator/information in the 1st SCI).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Huawei to incorporate the teachings of Lee2 and include the sidelink control information indicates the PRG size via a bit value, a sidelink control information format, a sidelink control information rate-matching offset, a target code rate, or any combination thereof of Lee2 with Huawei. Doing so may efficiently perform SL communication (Lee2, at paragraph [0017]).
Moreover, Beijing teaches determining the PRG size is based at least in part on the bit value and a modulation and coding scheme index, the sidelink control information format, the sidelink control information rate-matching offset, the target code rate, or any combination thereof (paragraph [0005], table 1 in paragraph [0073]: details PRG size corresponds to MCS index value).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Huawei to incorporate the teachings of Beijing and include determining the PRG size is based at least in part on the bit value and a modulation and coding scheme index, the sidelink control information format, the sidelink control information rate-matching offset, the target code rate, or any combination thereof of Beijing with Huawei. Doing so would more effectively reduce signaling overhead (Beijing, at Summary).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the pending claims have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
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/JASPER KWOH/Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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