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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 06/22/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 06/22/2026 has been entered. Claims 1 and 11 have been amended. Claim 3 is canceled. Claims 1-2 and 4-20 are pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 06/22/2026, have been fully considered and entered but they are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
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 of this title, 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 1-2, 10, 12-13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (ERICSSON: "Enhancements for IIoT/URLLC on Unlicensed Band", 3GPP DRAFT; R1-2005515, vol. RAN WG1, no. e-Meeting; 2020-08-17 – 2020-08-28, retrieved on 08 August 2020), hereinafter Ericsson, in view Bagheri et al. (US 20230319885 A1) hereinafter Bagheri.
Regarding claim 1,
Ericsson teaches a method, comprising: obtaining, by a processor of an apparatus implemented in a first user equipment (UE), a UE-initiated channel occupancy time (COT) in a Frame Based Equipment (FBE) mode (Section 2.1: "UE initiated COT for semi-static channel”… Semi-static channel access mode (a.k.a. FBE)… ); and
performing, by the processor, an uplink (UL) transmission to a network in the UE- initiated COT (Section 2.1: "Support of UE initiated channel occupancy for semi-static channel access … This results in scheduling/configuration restrictions of UL transmissions as illustrated in Figure 1").
wherein the UE-initiated COT in the FBE mode (Section 2.1.1, "UE initiated COT for semi-static channel access mode was agreed to be supported in Rel-16"), and reported to the network (Section 2.1.2 and Observation 2: Therefore, the UE and gNB behavior corresponding to UE-initiated COT is similar to those specified in Rel-16 for gNB-initiated COT where the UE and gNB behaviors can be exchanged as compared to Rel-16 when acting as initiating and responding devices, respectively).
Ericsson did not explicitly teach wherein an ability to perform the UE-initiated COT is defined as a UE capability, and reported to the network.
Bagheri teaches wherein an ability to perform the UE-initiated COT is defined as a UE capability, and reported to the network (the UE is enabled to initiate a COT if the UE has indicated a capability of performing UE initiated COT to the network [0099]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of Bagheri to the teachings of Ericsson. The motivation for such an addition would be to improve network performance (Bagheri [0073]).
Regarding claim 2,
Ericsson and Bagheri teach all the features of claim 1, as outlined above.
Ericsson further teaches wherein the performing of the UL transmission comprises transmitting UL data which crosses a slot boundary, and wherein the UL data crosses the slot boundary for a fixed frame period (FFP) starting during a slot (Section 2.1.1 Fig. 1, Case 2, "FFP (UE1)").
Regarding claim 10,
Ericsson and Bagheri teach all the features of claim 1, as outlined above.
Ericsson further teaches wherein the UL transmission in the UE- initiated COT overlaps with an idle period of a base station-initiated COT (Fig. 2).
Regarding claims [12-13 and 20] “apparatus” are rejected under the same reasoning as claims [1-2 and 10] “method”.
Claims 1-2, 10, 12-13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (ERICSSON: "Enhancements for IIoT/URLLC on Unlicensed Band", 3GPP DRAFT; R1-2005515, vol. RAN WG1, no. e-Meeting; 2020-08-17 – 2020-08-28, retrieved on 08 August 2020), hereinafter Ericsson, in view Calcev et al. (US 20230180293 A1) hereinafter Calcev.
Regarding claim 1,
Ericsson teaches a method, comprising: obtaining, by a processor of an apparatus implemented in a first user equipment (UE), a UE-initiated channel occupancy time (COT) in a Frame Based Equipment (FBE) mode (Section 2.1: "UE initiated COT for semi-static channel”… Semi-static channel access mode (a.k.a. FBE)… ); and
performing, by the processor, an uplink (UL) transmission to a network in the UE- initiated COT (Section 2.1: "Support of UE initiated channel occupancy for semi-static channel access … This results in scheduling/configuration restrictions of UL transmissions as illustrated in Figure 1").
wherein the UE-initiated COT in the FBE mode (Section 2.1.1, "UE initiated COT for semi-static channel access mode was agreed to be supported in Rel-16"), and reported to the network (Section 2.1.2 and Observation 2: Therefore, the UE and gNB behavior corresponding to UE-initiated COT is similar to those specified in Rel-16 for gNB-initiated COT where the UE and gNB behaviors can be exchanged as compared to Rel-16 when acting as initiating and responding devices, respectively).
Ericsson did not explicitly teach wherein an ability to perform the UE-initiated COT is defined as a UE capability, and reported to the network.
Calcev teaches wherein an ability to perform the UE-initiated COT is defined as a UE capability, and reported to the network (transmitting, by the UE, capability information indicating capability of the UE to initiate COTs [0046]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of Calcev to the teachings of Ericsson. The motivation for such an addition would be to facilitate communications of a UE in the FBE mode in the unlicensed spectrum, with reduced transmission delays, overhead and battery power consumption. (Calcev [0070]).
Regarding claim 2,
Ericsson and Calcev teach all the features of claim 1, as outlined above.
Ericsson further teaches wherein the performing of the UL transmission comprises transmitting UL data which crosses a slot boundary, and wherein the UL data crosses the slot boundary for a fixed frame period (FFP) starting during a slot (Section 2.1.1 Fig. 1, Case 2, "FFP (UE1)").
Regarding claim 10,
Ericsson and Calcev teach all the features of claim 1, as outlined above.
Ericsson further teaches wherein the UL transmission in the UE- initiated COT overlaps with an idle period of a base station-initiated COT (Fig. 2).
Regarding claims [12-13 and 20] “apparatus” are rejected under the same reasoning as claims [1-2 and 10] “method”.
Claims 4-9 and 14-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ericsson in view of Bagheri / Calcev, and further in view of (QUALCOMM INCORPORATED: "uplink enhancements for URLLC in unlicensed controlled environments", 3GPP DRAFT; R1-2006801, vol. RAN WG1, no. e-Meeting; 2020-08-17 – 2020-08-28, retrieved on 08 August 2020), hereinafter Qualcomm.
Regarding claim 4,
Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev teach all the features of claim 1, as outlined above.
Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev did not explicitly teach wherein the performing of the UL transmission comprises performing the UL transmission with an offset configurable to the first UE such that a fixed frame period (FFP) including the UE-initiated COT initiated by the UE for the UL transmission does not collide with a network-initiated COT.
Qualcomm teaches wherein the performing of the UL transmission comprises performing the UL transmission with an offset configurable to the first UE such that a fixed frame period (FFP) including the UE-initiated COT initiated by the UE for the UL transmission does not collide with a network-initiated COT (Section 2.2, Proposal 1, "UE is explicitly configured with a FFP period and offset, where the period can be the same or different from gNB FFP period, and the offset is with respect to gNB FFP offset").
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of Qualcomm to the teachings of Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev. The motivation for such an addition would be to enhance IoT industry (Qualcomm, introduction).
Regarding claim 5,
Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev teach all the features of claim 1, as outlined above.
Ericsson further teaches wherein the performing of the UL transmission in the UE-initiated COT comprises sharing the UE-initiated COT (Section 2.1.1, Condition 3), "an already initiated COT can be can be shared”
Ericsson did not explicitly teach allowing UE to share its COT to the other UEs.
Qualcomm teaches allowing UE to share its COT to the other UEs (Section 2.4, Proposal 6).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of Qualcomm to the teachings of Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev. The motivation for such an addition would be to enhance IoT industry (Qualcomm, introduction).
Regarding claim 6,
Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev and Qualcomm teach all the features of claim 5, as outlined above.
Ericsson further teaches wherein the performing of the UL transmission further comprises transmitting an ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) traffic (Section 2.1.1, "by allowing UE initiated COT in semi-static channel … access mode latency reduction gains for IIOT/URLLC applications").
Regarding claim 7,
Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev and Qualcomm teach all the features of claim 5, as outlined above.
Ericsson further teaches wherein the UE-initiated COT is also shared with a base station of the network (Section 2.1.1, "UE procedures to initiate and share a COT with gNB").
Regarding claim 8,
Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev and Qualcomm teach all the features of claim 5, as outlined above.
Ericsson did not explicitly teach wherein the sharing of the UE- initiated COT comprises:
receiving from the network a scheduling downlink control information (DCI), wherein a content in the scheduling DCI indicates whether the first UE is allowed to share the UE-initiated COT; and utilizing the UE-initiated COT responsive to receiving the scheduling DCI.
Qualcomm teaches wherein the sharing of the UE- initiated COT comprises:
receiving from the network a scheduling downlink control information (DCI), wherein a content in the scheduling DCI indicates whether the first UE is allowed to share the UE-initiated COT; and utilizing the UE-initiated COT responsive to receiving the scheduling DCI (Section 2.4, "We can add a bit in DCI 2_0 to differentiate the transmission is in a gNB initiated COT or in a shared COT from a UE").
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of Qualcomm to the teachings of Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev. The motivation for such an addition would be to enhance IoT industry (Qualcomm, introduction).
Regarding claim 9,
Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev and Qualcomm teach all the features of claim 5, as outlined above.
Ericsson did not explicitly teach wherein the sharing of the UE- initiated COT comprises:
determining that the first UE is allowed to share the UE-initiated COT based on one or more resources scheduled for the UL transmission; and utilizing the UE-initiated COT responsive to the determining.
Qualcomm teaches wherein the sharing of the UE- initiated COT comprises:
determining that the first UE is allowed to share the UE-initiated COT based on one or more resources scheduled for the UL transmission; and utilizing the UE-initiated COT responsive to the determining (Section 2.3, "Besides RRC configuration of UE-initiated COT, UE-initiated
COT can also be indicated by dynamic indicator. For example, an indicator can
be introduced in UL-grant to inform the UE to use its own FFP for the PUSCH
transmission").
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of Qualcomm to the teachings of Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev. The motivation for such an addition would be to enhance IoT industry (Qualcomm, introduction).
Regarding claims [14-19] “apparatus” are rejected under the same reasoning as claims [4-9] “method”.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ericsson in view of Bagheri / Calcev and further in view of Wang (US 20220210827 A1), hereinafter Wang.
Regarding claim 11,
Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev teach all the features of claim 1, as outlined above.
Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev do not explicitly teach performing physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring; or skipping the PDCCH monitoring during the UE-initiated COT, wherein the first UE is configured by the network to performing the PDCCH monitoring during the UE-initiated COT or within a base station-initiated COT.
Wang teaches performing physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring; or skipping the PDCCH monitoring during the UE-initiated COT, wherein the first UE is configured by the network to performing the PDCCH monitoring during the UE-initiated COT or within a base station-initiated COT ([0024][0082]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to add the teachings of Wang to the teachings of Ericsson and Bagheri / Calcev. The motivation for such an addition would be to improve system capability and performance specifically relates to Channel Occupancy Time (COT) sharing in a wireless system (Wang [0002]).
Conclusion
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/AYMAN A ABAZA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2465
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