DETAILED ACTION
CONTINUED EXAMINATION UNDER 37 CFR 1.114
1. 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 December 4, 2025, has been entered with the request for continued examination dated January 7, 2026.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
3. Applicant's arguments, filed on December 4, 2025, with respect to objections to claims 10 and 22 have been considered and are persuasive. Objections to claims 10-22 have been withdrawn.
4. Applicant’s arguments regarding rejection of claims 6, 9-10, 13, and 21-24 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any combination of the references being used in the current rejection. Examiner has applied Nguyen ‘728 (US 2021/0105728) to clearly teach the amended limitations in claims 6, 9-10, 13, and 21-24.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
6. Claims 6, 13, and 23-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kusashima ‘829 (US 2022/0070829, “Kusashima ‘829”), in view of Kwon ‘993 (US 2019/0158993, “Kwon ‘993”), and further in view of Nguyen ‘728 (US 2021/0105728, “Nguyen ‘728”; Nguyen ‘728 was filed on October 1, 2020, claiming priority to US provisional application 62/909553 filed on October 2, 2019, and thus Nguyen ‘728 was effectively filed before the claimed invention; further, the US provisional application 62/909553 fully supports all citations made in the rejection from the Nguyen ‘728 reference).
Regarding claims 6 and 13, Kusashima ‘829 discloses a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system supporting sidelink (FIG. 1, para 40-43; reception terminal device that performs reception by sidelink communication with another terminal device), the UE comprising:
a transceiver (FIGS. 1 and 3, para 63; transmission unit 207 and reception unit 205); and
a processor (FIGS. 1 and 3, para 63; control unit 203) configured to:
receive, from a network, information about a resource pool for sidelink communication and information about a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) (FIG. 1, para 60, 82-90, and 122; base station indicates to the terminal device sidelink resource pools for transmission and reception of sidelink channels, including resources for a sidelink feedback ACK/NACK channel; resources for the sidelink feedback ACK/NACK channel include frequency resources that are resource blocks; the sidelink feedback ACK/NACK channel is also referred to as a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH); thus, the terminal device receives from the base station information about the sidelink resource pools, including information about resources for PSFCH),
receive sidelink data on at least one physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) (FIG. 1, para 82-90; sidelink data is received on PSSCH, using resources that include frequency-domain resource blocks), and
in a case that the UE transmits sidelink feedback information on PSFCHs using multiple carriers, transmit the sidelink feedback information including acknowledgement information for the sidelink data on the PSFCHs using the multiple carriers (FIG. 1, para 82-90; sidelink feedback ACK/NACK is transmitted to a transmission terminal device, in response to received sidelink data, on PSFCH, using resources that include frequency-domain resource blocks; resource blocks read on multiple carriers).
Although Kusashima ‘829 discloses a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system supporting sidelink, Kusashima ‘829 does not specifically disclose a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system supporting sidelink carrier aggregation. Further, Kusashima ‘829 does not specifically disclose transmission using the sidelink carrier aggregation. Furthermore, although Kusashima ‘829 discloses in a case that the UE transmits sidelink feedback information on PSFCHs using multiple carriers, transmit the sidelink feedback information including acknowledgement information for the sidelink data on the PSFCHs using the multiple carriers, Kusashima ‘829 does not specifically disclose in case that the UE simultaneously transmits sidelink feedback information using multiple carriers, transmit the sidelink feedback information including acknowledgement information for the sidelink data using the multiple carriers.
Kwon ‘993 teaches a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system supporting sidelink carrier aggregation (para 87; UE supports sidelink carrier aggregation),
transmission using the sidelink carrier aggregation (para 87; UE supports transmission using the sidelink carrier aggregation); and
in case that the UE simultaneously transmits sidelink feedback information using multiple carriers, transmit the sidelink feedback information including acknowledgement information for the sidelink data using the multiple carriers (para 87, 90-94, and 138-141; the UE transmits data channels over multiple carriers in parallel, using sidelink carrier aggregation; the UE transmits negative acknowledgement (NACK) feedback information over the multiple carriers, using sidelink carrier aggregation, to the UE that transmitted original data; the NACK is transmitted when the original data reception has an error; thus, the UE simultaneously transmits sidelink feedback information over multiple carriers, where the sidelink feedback information includes acknowledgement information for the sidelink data using multiple carriers).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Kusashima ‘829’s UE that receives information about a resource pool for sidelink communication, to include Kwon ‘993’s UE that supports sidelink carrier aggregation. The motivation for doing so would have been to efficiently support duplicated data transmission for a vehicle communication service which requires high reliability (Kwon ‘993, para 4).
Although Kusashima ‘829 in combination with Kwon ‘993 discloses transmission using the sidelink carrier aggregation, Kusashima ‘829 in combination with Kwon ‘993 does not specifically disclose identify a UE capability about a number of multiple PSFCHs that the UE supports for transmission. Further, although Kusashima ‘829 in combination with Kwon ‘993 discloses in case that the UE simultaneously transmits sidelink feedback information on PSFCHs using multiple carriers, transmitting the sidelink feedback information including acknowledgement information for the sidelink data on the PSFCHs using the multiple carriers, Kusashima ‘829 in combination with Kwon ‘993 does not specifically disclose in case that the UE simultaneously transmits sidelink feedback information on PSFCHs, transmit the sidelink feedback information including acknowledgement information for the sidelink data on the PSFCHs, based on the UE capability about the number of the multiple PSFCHs.
Nguyen ‘728 teaches identify a UE capability about a number of multiple PSFCHs that the UE supports for transmission (FIGS. 5, 7, and 9, para 82 and 108-111; a number of PSFCH transmissions satisfies a threshold value by being less than or equal to the threshold value, where the threshold value is a maximum number of PSFCH transmissions that the UE has a capability to transmit in a single HARQ feedback occasion), and
in case that the UE simultaneously transmits sidelink feedback information on PSFCHs, transmit the sidelink feedback information including acknowledgement information for the sidelink data on the PSFCHs, based on the UE capability about the number of the multiple PSFCHs (FIGS. 5, 7, and 9, para 82 and 108-111; the UE transmits sidelink feedback information on a number of PSFCHs, including acknowledgement information for sidelink data, based on the UE capability about the number of PSFCHs).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add features to the combined reception UE of Kusashima ‘829 and Kwon ‘993, to include Nguyen ‘728’s UE capability about the number of PSFCHs that the UE supports for transmission. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide further improvements in radio access technologies and telecommunication standards that employ these technologies, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase (Nguyen ‘728, para 5).
Regarding claims 23 and 24, Kusashima ‘829 in combination with Kwon ‘993 and Nguyen ‘728 discloses all the limitations with respect to claims 6 and 13, respectively, as outlined above.
Further, Nguyen ‘728 teaches wherein the processor is further configured to transmit the sidelink feedback information including the acknowledgement information for the sidelink data on the PSFCHs using the multiple carriers, based on the UE capability about the number of the multiple PSFCHs and a maximum transmission power of the UE, in case that the UE simultaneously transmits the sidelink feedback information on the PSFCHs using the multiple carriers (FIGS. 5, 7, and 9, para 82, 94, and 108-111; the UE transmits sidelink feedback information on a number of PSFCHs, including acknowledgement information for sidelink data, based on the UE capability about the number of PSFCHs and maximum transmit power capability of the UE).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add features to the combined reception UE of Kusashima ‘829, Kwon ‘993, and Nguyen ‘728, to further include Nguyen ‘728’s UE capability about the number of PSFCHs that the UE supports for transmission and the maximum transmit power capability of the UE. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide further improvements in radio access technologies and telecommunication standards that employ these technologies, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase (Nguyen ‘728, para 5).
7. Claims 9-10 and 21-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kusashima ‘829, in view of Kwon ‘993, further in view of Nguyen ‘728, and further in view of Yu ‘560 (US 2022/0394560, “Yu ‘560”).
Regarding claims 9 and 21, Kusashima ‘829 in combination with Kwon ‘993 and Nguyen ‘728 discloses all the limitations with respect to claims 6 and 13, respectively, as outlined above.
Further, Kusashima ‘829 teaches the sidelink data being received on the PSSCHs using the multiple carriers (FIG. 1, para 82-90; sidelink data is received on PSSCH, using resources that include frequency-domain resource blocks; resource blocks read on the multiple carriers).
Although Kusashima ‘829 in combination with Kwon ‘993 and Nguyen ‘728 discloses the sidelink data being received on the PSSCHs using the multiple carriers, Kusashima ‘829 in combination with Kwon ‘993 and Nguyen ‘728 does not specifically disclose wherein in response to the sidelink data being received on the PSSCHs, resources of the PSFCHs where the sidelink feedback information including the acknowledgement information is transmitted are identified by one of a frequency division multiplexing (FDM) scheme, time division multiplexing (TDM) and code division multiplexing (CDM) based on frequency resources and time resources of each carrier where the sidelink data is received.
Yu ‘560 teaches wherein in response to the sidelink data being received on the PSSCHs, resources of the PSFCHs where the sidelink feedback information including the acknowledgement information is transmitted are identified by one of a frequency division multiplexing (FDM) scheme, time division multiplexing (TDM) and code division multiplexing (CDM) based on frequency resources and time resources of each carrier where the sidelink data is received (FIGS. 1, 2, and 6, para 35-39, 52-54, and 112-118; in a V2X communication system with multiple UEs, the multiple UEs exchange V2X data messages; UEs receive sidelink data from other UEs over PSSCH channels, and transmit ACK/NACK feedbacks to other UEs over PSFCH channels; PSFCH time-domain and frequency-domain resources are determined from a starting sub-channel index and slot index frequency-domain and time-domain resources used for a corresponding PSSCH, where information carried using PSFCH resources is multiplexed according to a FDM scheme; thus, sidelink data is received on a plurality of PSSCH sidelink data channels through a plurality of frequency carriers; further, PSFCH resources used to transmit ACK/NACK feedbacks are determined by the FDM scheme, based on PSSCH sub-channel frequency-domain and slot time-domain resources used to receive sidelink data; examiner notes the use of alternative language; for rejection purposes, only one of the alternative limitations must be disclosed by prior art).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to add features to the combined reception UE of Kusashima ‘829, Kwon ‘993, and Nguyen ‘728, to include Yu ‘560’s UE that transmits sidelink data to a group of other UE over PSSCH channels, and receives ACK/NACK feedback over PSFCH channels. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide a pre-emption mechanism between UEs in a V2X NR system (Yu ‘560, para 2-3).
Regarding claims 10 and 22, Kusashima ‘829 in combination with Kwon ‘993, Nguyen ‘728, and Yu ‘560 discloses all the limitations with respect to claims 9 and 21, respectively, as outlined above.
Further, Kusashima ‘829 teaches wherein information indicating a start physical resource block (PRB) and end PRB among PRB resources of a slot where the sidelink feedback information including the acknowledgement information is transmitted is determined based on the information about the PSFCH (FIG. 1, para 82-90; sidelink feedback ACK/NACK is transmitted by a reception terminal device, in response to transmitted sidelink data, on PSFCH, using resources that include frequency-domain resource blocks; PSFCH resources are in a slot, and are indicated by a resource block start position and a resource block end position).
Conclusion
Internet Communication
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/NEVENA ZECEVIC SANDHU/Examiner, Art Unit 2474
/Michael Thier/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2474