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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 filed on 05/20/2026 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of AWADIN et al. (US 20220377790 A1) to address the amended limitations.
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 (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.
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.
Claims 1-2, 14-16 and 53 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AWADIN et al. (US 20230035989 A1) in view of AWADIN et al. (US 20220377790 A1).
Regarding claim 1,
AWADIN discloses “A method of operating a communications device, the method
comprising” (See [0005] Methods and apparatuses are described herein for transmission
priority, collisions, and sharing in the COT by frame-based equipment (FBE)) “determining
that the communications device can transmit data via one or more communications
resources of an unlicensed channel of a wireless access interface” (See [0092] In mmWave,
there is wide range of unlicensed spectrum that can be further utilized to attain higher data rate than attained by operating in sub 6 GHz frequency band. [0093] An FBE may comprise
equipment where the transmit/receive structure has a periodic timing with a periodicity
equal to the Fixed Frame Period (FFP). Initiating device comprises a device that initiates a
sequence of one or more transmissions. Otherwise, the device is called Responding device.
[0094] The initiating device may implement channel access mechanism as follows: [0095] A
device may perform a Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) 53 check during a single observation
slot. If the initiating device finds the operating channel(s) to be clear, it may transmit
immediately), “the communications resources of the unlicensed channel being shared in
time with at least one of an infrastructure equipment of a wireless communications
network and one or more other communications devices which can also transmit in the
communications resources of the unlicensed channel” (See [0099] procedures to enable the
UE initiated COT to be shared with its gNB and possibly other UEs served by the same gNB
are described herein to allow better utilization of the unused parts of the COT), “the
transmission of the data by the communications device on the unlicensed channel being
arranged in time according to a fixed frame period including a channel occupancy time for
transmitting the data and an idle period” (See [0093] An FBE may comprise equipment
where the transmit/receive structure has a periodic timing with a periodicity equal to the
Fixed Frame Period (FFP). See Fig. 1, [0096] The COT 54 may not be greater than 95% of the
Fixed Frame Period 51 and may be followed by an Idle period 55 until the start of the next
Fixed Frame Period 51 such that the Idle Period 55 is at least 5% of the COT 54, with a
minimum of 100 μs), “the determining that the communications device can transmit the
data on the communications resources of the unlicensed channel including detecting that
none of the infrastructure equipment and the one or more other communications devices
are transmitting according to a clear channel assessment, CCA, phase associated with a channel occupancy time of a fixed frame period” (See [0094] The initiating device may
implement channel access mechanism as follows: [0095] A device may perform a Clear
Channel Assessment (CCA) 53 check during a single observation slot. If the initiating device
finds the operating channel(s) to be clear, it may transmit immediately), “transmitting
at least part of the data by the communications device in one or more of the
communications resources of the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period in the
unlicensed channel” (See [0095] If the initiating device finds the operating channel(s) to be
clear, it may transmit immediately. [0198] The initiating FBE device may not occupy the
whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which as described above may be
labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a UE. Note: The device starts
transmitting after determining the channel is clear, and it occupies a portion of the COT of
the FFP to transmit at least part of its data), “and the method includes determining that
one or more portions of the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period are unused
by the communications device by detecting that the data is less than a total capacity of the channel occupancy time; and releasing the one or more portions of the channel occupancy time unused by the communications device as a release device to at least one of the infrastructure equipment and the one or more other communications devices as a recipient device” (See [0096] An initiating device is allowed to grant an authorization to one or more associated responding devices to transmit on the current operating channel within the current COT 54. [0190] it may be beneficial that the UE, which starts its COT early to terminate the transmission and release the channel early (even before the end of its COT) to give a chance for other UEs to initiate their transmissions. For example, a UE may only use a particular portion of the COT which may be indicated by high layer signaling such as RRC or MAC-CE. Alternatively, the UE may only transmit in the first few UL occasions and then release the channel. [0195] Channel sharing and COT indication are described herein. It is beneficial that initiating device, e.g., either the gNB or UE, indicate that it successfully acquires the channel by transmitting an indicator, which it may be denoted by a CAI, such that other responding devices become aware of which nodes occupied the COT. The indication may carry information including: [0198] The duration of the actual transmission period: The initiating FBE device may not occupy the whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which as described above may be labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a UE. Therefore, such information may allow other nodes to exploit the remaining portion of the COT. Note: The initiating device is the release device that releases the unused portion of the COT to the responding/ recipient devices to utilize. The initiating device only uses a portion of the COT to transmit at least part of its data and terminates the COT early, which implies that the initiating UE recognizes/ detects that the data to be transmitted is less than the total capacity of the COT, and accordingly releases the COT early).
AWADIN does not explicitly disclose adopting a new fixed frame period upon receiving the released portions.
However, AWADIN ’790 discloses “wherein releasing the one or more portions causes the recipient device to adopt a new fixed frame period for the recipient device upon receiving the released one or more portions” (See [0085] if a UE initiates a COT according to UE's FFP and if gNB share the UE initiated COT, then the gNB has to terminate the DL transmission according to the UE's FFP configurations. Therefore, the gNB may initiate its own COT according to its FFP configurations. Effectively, both the UE and the gNB occupy the channel, but each one occupies it according to the UE's and the gNB's FFP configuration, respectively).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN with the teachings of AWADIN ‘790, and the motivation to do so would have been to increase flexibility in channel access by allowing operation under different FFP configurations.
Regarding claim 2,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses “The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more portions of the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period unused comprises a remaining portion of the channel occupancy time after the communications device has transmitted at least part of the data” (See AWADIN [0198] The initiating FBE device may not occupy the whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which as described above may be labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a UE. Therefore, such information may allow other nodes to exploit the remaining portion of the COT), “and the method comprises transmitting, by the communications device, to one of the infrastructure equipment and one of the one or more other communications devices an indication that the infrastructure equipment or the other one of the one or more communications devices can transmit in the remaining portion of the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period unused by the communications device” (See AWADIN [0096] An initiating device is allowed to grant an authorization to one or more associated responding devices to transmit on the current operating channel within the current COT 54. The Responding Device may perform transmissions on the current operating channel for the remaining COT 54 of the current Fixed Frame Period 51. [0190] it may be beneficial that the UE, which starts its COT early to terminate the transmission and release the channel early (even before the end of its COT) to give a chance for other UEs to initiate their transmissions. For example, a UE may only use a particular portion of the COT which may be indicated by high layer signaling such as RRC or MAC-CE. Alternatively, the UE may only transmit in the first few UL occasions and then release the channel. Note: The initiating device decides to release the remaining unused portion of the COT, and grants an authorization/ indication to the other devices to use the remaining portion for transmissions).
Regarding claim 14,
AWADIN discloses “A method of operating a communications device to communicate using
a wireless communications network, the method comprising” (See [0005] Methods and
apparatuses are described herein for transmission priority, collisions, and sharing in the COT
by frame-based equipment (FBE)) “determining that the communications device can
transmit data via one or more communications resources of an unlicensed channel of a
wireless access interface” (See [0092] In mmWave, there is wide range of unlicensed
spectrum that can be further utilized to attain higher data rate than attained by operating in sub 6 GHz frequency band. [0096] An initiating device is allowed to grant an authorization to
one or more associated responding devices to transmit on the current operating channel
within the current COT 54), “the communications resources of the unlicensed channel being
shared in time with at least one of an infrastructure equipment of a wireless
communications network and one or more other communications devices which can also
transmit in the communications resources of the unlicensed channel” (See [0099]
procedures to enable the UE initiated COT to be shared with its gNB and possibly other UEs
served by the same gNB are described herein to allow better utilization of the unused parts
of the COT), “the transmission of the data by the communications device on the unlicensed
channel being arranged in time according to a fixed frame period including a channel
occupancy time for transmitting the data and an idle period” (See [0093] An FBE may
comprise equipment where the transmit/receive structure has a periodic timing with a
periodicity equal to the Fixed Frame Period (FFP). See Fig. 1, [0096] The COT 54 may not be
greater than 95% of the Fixed Frame Period 51 and may be followed by an Idle period 55
until the start of the next Fixed Frame Period 51 such that the Idle Period 55 is at least 5% of
the COT 54, with a minimum of 100 μs), “and the determining that the communications
device can transmit the data on the communications resources of the unlicensed channel
comprises detecting that one of the infrastructure equipment and one of the one or more
other communications devices, which has transmitted signals on the unlicensed channel in
a channel occupancy time of a fixed frame period of the infrastructure equipment or the
one other communications device has released one or more portions of the channel
occupancy time of the fixed frame period which are unused by the infrastructure
equipment or the one other communications device upon determination that the
transmitted signals of the infrastructure equipment or the one other communications device is less than a total capacity of the channel occupancy time” (See [0096] An initiating
device is allowed to grant an authorization to one or more associated responding devices to
transmit on the current operating channel within the current COT 54. [0190] it may be
beneficial that the UE, which starts its COT early to terminate the transmission and release
the channel early (even before the end of its COT) to give a chance for other UEs to initiate
their transmissions. For example, a UE may only use a particular portion of the COT which
may be indicated by high layer signaling such as RRC or MAC-CE. Alternatively, the UE may
only transmit in the first few UL occasions and then release the channel. [0195] Channel
sharing and COT indication are described herein. It is beneficial that initiating device, e.g.,
either the gNB or UE, indicate that it successfully acquires the channel by transmitting an
indicator, which it may be denoted by a CAI, such that other responding devices become
aware of which nodes occupied the COT. The indication may carry information including:
[0196] Parameters associated with frame periodicity (FFP), the length of the COT, the length
of the idle window. [0198] The duration of the actual transmission period: The initiating FBE
device may not occupy the whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which
as described above may be labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a
UE. Therefore, such information may allow other nodes to exploit the remaining portion of
the COT. Note: The receiving device has information about the actual transmission period
and the length of the COT, which helps determine that the transmitted signals are less than
a total capacity of the COT), “the infrastructure equipment or the one other
communications device being a release device, and the communications device being a
recipient device, and transmitting, by the communications device as the recipient device,
at least part of the data in one or more of the released portions of the unlicensed channel
from the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period of the release device” (See [0096] An initiating device is allowed to grant an authorization to one or more associated
responding devices to transmit on the current operating channel within the current COT 54.
The Responding Device may perform transmissions on the current operating channel for the
remaining COT 54 of the current Fixed Frame Period 51. Note: The initiating device is the
release device that releases the unused portion of the COT to the responding/ recipient
devices to utilize)).
AWADIN does not explicitly disclose adopting a new fixed frame period upon receiving the released portions.
However, AWADIN ’790 discloses “the recipient device adopting a new fixed frame period for the recipient device upon receiving the released one or more portions” (See [0085] if a UE initiates a COT according to UE's FFP and if gNB share the UE initiated COT, then the gNB has to terminate the DL transmission according to the UE's FFP configurations. Therefore, the gNB may initiate its own COT according to its FFP configurations. Effectively, both the UE and the gNB occupy the channel, but each one occupies it according to the UE's and the gNB's FFP configuration, respectively).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN with the teachings of AWADIN ‘790, and the motivation to do so would have been to increase flexibility in channel access by allowing operation under different FFP configurations.
Regarding claim 15,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses “The method of claim 14, wherein the transmitting, by the communications device as the recipient device, at least part of the data in the one or more released portions of the unlicensed channel from the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period of the release device comprises transmitting at least part of the data by the communications device as the recipient device in the one or more communications resources of the unlicensed channel from a channel occupancy time of a fixed frame period of the communications device as the recipient device” (See AWADIN [0096] An initiating device is allowed to grant an authorization to one or more associated responding devices to transmit on the current operating channel within the current COT 54. The Responding Device may perform transmissions on the current operating channel for the remaining COT 54 of the current Fixed Frame Period 51. [0198] The initiating FBE device may not occupy the whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which as described above may be labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a UE. Therefore, such information may allow other nodes to exploit the remaining portion of the COT. Note: The responding/ recipient device uses the remaining/ unused portion of the COT to transmit at least part of its data).
Regarding claim 16,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses “The method of claim 14, wherein the transmitting, by the communications device as the recipient device, at least part of the data in the one or more released portions of the unlicensed channel comprises transmitting at least part of the data by the communications device as the recipient device in the one or more of the released portions according to the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period of the release device” (See AWADIN [0096] An initiating device is allowed to grant an authorization to one or more associated responding devices to transmit on the current operating channel within the current COT 54. The Responding Device may perform transmissions on the current operating channel for the remaining COT 54 of the current Fixed Frame Period 51. [0198] The initiating FBE device may not occupy the whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which as described above may be labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a UE. Therefore, such information may allow other nodes to exploit the remaining portion of the COT), “the fixed frame period of the release device including the channel occupancy time and an idle period” (See AWADIN [0093] An FBE may comprise equipment where the transmit/receive structure has a periodic timing with a periodicity equal to the Fixed Frame Period (FFP). See Fig. 1, [0096] The COT 54 may not be greater than 95% of the Fixed Frame Period 51 and may be followed by an Idle period 55 until the start of the next Fixed Frame Period 51 such that the Idle Period 55 is at least 5% of the COT 54, with a minimum of 100 μs).
Regarding claim 53,
AWADIN discloses “A communications device comprising transmitter circuitry configured to transmit signals via communications resources of an unlicensed channel of a wireless
access interface, receiver circuitry configured to receive signals transmitted via the
communications resources of the unlicensed channel, and controller circuitry configured to
control the transmitter circuitry and the receiver circuitry” (See Fig. 36B, [0005] Methods
and apparatuses are described herein for transmission priority, collisions, and sharing in the
COT by frame-based equipment (FBE)). [0092] In mmWave, there is wide range of
unlicensed spectrum that can be further utilized to attain higher data rate than attained by
operating in sub 6 GHz frequency band) “the communications resources of the unlicensed
channel being shared in time with at least one of an infrastructure equipment of a wireless
communications network and one or more other communications devices which can also
transmit in the communications resources of the unlicensed channel at different times”
(See [0099] procedures to enable the UE initiated COT to be shared with its gNB and
possibly other UEs served by the same gNB are described herein to allow better utilization
of the unused parts of the COT), “the controller circuitry being configured with the receiver
circuitry to determine that the transmitter circuitry can transmit data via one or more of
the communications resources of the unlicensed channel according to a fixed frame
period” (See [0093] An FBE may comprise equipment where the transmit/receive structure
has a periodic timing with a periodicity equal to the Fixed Frame Period (FFP). Initiating
device comprises a device that initiates a sequence of one or more transmissions.
Otherwise, the device is called Responding device. [0094] The initiating device may
implement channel access mechanism as follows: [0095] A device may perform a Clear
Channel Assessment (CCA) 53 check during a single observation slot. If the initiating device
finds the operating channel(s) to be clear, it may transmit immediately), “including a
channel occupancy time for transmitting the data and an idle period” (See Fig. 1, [0096] The COT 54 may not be greater than 95% of the Fixed Frame Period 51 and may be followed
by an Idle period 55 until the start of the next Fixed Frame Period 51 such that the Idle
Period 55 is at least 5% of the COT 54, with a minimum of 100 μs), “by detecting that none
of the infrastructure equipment and the one or more other communications devices are
transmitting according to a clear channel assessment, CCA, phase associated with a
channel occupancy time of a fixed frame period” (See [0094] The initiating device may
implement channel access mechanism as follows: [0095] A device may perform a Clear
Channel Assessment (CCA) 53 check during a single observation slot. If the initiating device
finds the operating channel(s) to be clear, it may transmit immediately), “and to control the
transmitter circuitry to transmit at least part of the data in one or more of the
communications resources of the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period in the
unlicensed channel” (See [0095] If the initiating device finds the operating channel(s) to be
clear, it may transmit immediately. [0198] The initiating FBE device may not occupy the
whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which as described above may be
labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a UE. Note: The device starts
transmitting after determining the channel is clear, and it occupies a portion of the COT of
the FFP to transmit at least part of its data), “wherein the controller circuitry is configured
to determine that one or more portions of the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame
period are unused by the communications device by detecting that the data is less than a total capacity of the channel occupancy time, and to release the one or more portions of the channel occupancy time unused by the communications device as a release device, the one or more portions being released to at least one of the infrastructure equipment and the one or more other communications devices as a recipient device” (See [0096] An initiating device is allowed to grant an authorization to one or more associated responding devices to transmit on the current operating channel within the current COT 54. [0190] it may be beneficial that the UE, which starts its COT early to terminate the transmission and release the channel early (even before the end of its COT) to give a chance for other UEs to initiate their transmissions. For example, a UE may only use a particular portion of the COT which may be indicated by high layer signaling such as RRC or MAC-CE. Alternatively, the UE may only transmit in the first few UL occasions and then release the channel. [0195] Channel sharing and COT indication are described herein. It is beneficial that initiating device, e.g., either the gNB or UE, indicate that it successfully acquires the channel by transmitting an indicator, which it may be denoted by a CAI, such that other responding devices become aware of which nodes occupied the COT. The indication may carry information including: [0198] The duration of the actual transmission period: The initiating FBE device may not occupy the whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which as described above may be labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a UE. Therefore, such information may allow other nodes to exploit the remaining portion of the COT. Note: The initiating device is the release device that releases the unused portion of the COT to the responding/ recipient devices to utilize. The initiating device only uses a portion of the COT to transmit at least part of its data and terminates the COT early, which implies that the initiating UE recognizes/ detects that the data to be transmitted is less than the total capacity of the COT, and accordingly releases the COT early).
AWADIN does not explicitly disclose adopting a new fixed frame period upon receiving the released portions.
However, AWADIN ’790 discloses “wherein releasing the one or more portions causes the recipient device to adopt a new fixed frame period for the recipient device upon receiving the released one or more portions” (See [0085] if a UE initiates a COT according to UE's FFP and if gNB share the UE initiated COT, then the gNB has to terminate the DL transmission according to the UE's FFP configurations. Therefore, the gNB may initiate its own COT according to its FFP configurations. Effectively, both the UE and the gNB occupy the channel, but each one occupies it according to the UE's and the gNB's FFP configuration, respectively).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN with the teachings of AWADIN ‘790, and the motivation to do so would have been to increase flexibility in channel access by allowing operation under different FFP configurations.
Claims 3, 5 and 7-8 and 11-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
AWADIN et al. (US 20230035989 A1) in view of AWADIN et al. (US 20220377790 A1), and further in view of Fakoorian et al. (US 20210176669 A1).
Regarding claim 3,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses “The method of claim 1, wherein the releasing the one or more portions of the channel occupancy time unused by the communications device as a release device, releasing a portion of the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period that unused by the communications device to the infrastructure equipment or the one of the other communications devices as the recipient device, the communications device transmitting at least part of the data before or after the portion released” (See AWADIN [0190] it may be beneficial that the UE, which starts its COT early to terminate the transmission and release the channel early (even before the end of its COT) to give a chance for other UEs to initiate their transmissions. For example, a UE may only use a particular portion of the COT which may be indicated by high layer signaling such as RRC or MAC-CE. Alternatively, the UE may only transmit in the first few UL occasions and then release the channel. [0198] The initiating FBE device may not occupy the whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which as described above may be labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a UE. Therefore, such information may allow other nodes to exploit the remaining portion of the COT).
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses that the release/ initiating device transmits at least part of its data before releasing the COT for the recipient/ responding devices to utilize the remaining portion, but does not explicitly disclose transmitting a release indication to the recipient devices.
However, Fakoorian discloses “comprises transmitting by the communications device as
the release device an indication that the communications device is releasing a portion of
the channel occupancy time” (See [0064] the network 100 may operate over a shared
channel, which may include shared frequency bands and/or unlicensed frequency bands. To
avoid collisions, the BSs and the UEs may employ a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure to
monitor for transmission opportunities (TXOPs) in the shared channel. A TXOP may also be
referred to as channel occupancy time (COT). [0067] a UE 115 may release an unused
reserved resource to allow another sidelink UE 115 to reclaim the unused resources for
sidelink transmissions. [0046] the inclusion of a resource release indication in SCI allows a
sidelink UE to release an unused reserved sidelink resource and allows another sidelink UE
to transmit in the resource that may otherwise by wasted). Note: AWADIN discloses that the
unused resource is the remaining portion of the COT.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN and AWADIN ‘790 with the teachings of Fakoorian to include a release indication of unused resources/ portion of the COT, and the motivation to do so would have been to improve resource utilization efficiency (Fakoorian [0046]).
Regarding claim 5,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian discloses “The method of claim 3, wherein the portion of the channel occupancy time released is pre-configured using radio resource control signalling before the communications device transmits the data” (See AWADIN [0190] a UE may only use a particular portion of the COT which may be indicated by high layer signaling such as RRC or MAC-CE). Note: Since the used portion of the COT is indicated via RRC, it inherently the remaining portion of the COT, since the duration of the COT is known.
Regarding claim 7,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses “The method of claim 1”, “releasing of the one or more portions of the channel occupancy time unused by the communications device as the release device to the recipient device” (See AWADIN [0190] it may be beneficial that the UE, which starts its COT early to terminate the transmission and release the channel early (even before the end of its COT) to give a chance for other UEs to initiate their transmissions. For example, a UE may only use a particular portion of the COT which may be indicated by high layer signaling such as RRC or MAC-CE. Alternatively, the UE may only transmit in the first few UL occasions and then release the channel. [0198] The initiating FBE device may not occupy the whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which as described above may be labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a UE. Therefore, such information may allow other nodes to exploit the remaining portion of the COT).
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses that the release/ initiating device transmits at least part of its data before releasing the COT for the recipient/ responding devices to utilize the remaining portion, but does not explicitly disclose transmitting a release signal indicating the releasing of unused portions of the COT.
However, Fakoorian discloses “transmitting a release signal indicating the releasing of the
one or more portions of the channel occupancy time unused by the communications device
as the release device to the recipient device” (See [0064] the network 100 may operate
over a shared channel, which may include shared frequency bands and/or unlicensed
frequency bands. To avoid collisions, the BSs and the UEs may employ a listen-before-talk
(LBT) procedure to monitor for transmission opportunities (TXOPs) in the shared channel. A
TXOP may also be referred to as channel occupancy time (COT). [0067] a UE 115 may
release an unused reserved resource to allow another sidelink UE 115 to reclaim the unused
resources for sidelink transmissions. [0046] the inclusion of a resource release indication in
SCI allows a sidelink UE to release an unused reserved sidelink resource and allows another
sidelink UE to transmit in the resource that may otherwise by wasted). Note: AWADIN
discloses that the unused resource is the remaining portion of the COT.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN and AWADIN ‘790 with the teachings of Fakoorian to include a release indication of unused resources/ portion of the COT, and the motivation to do so would have been to improve resource utilization efficiency (Fakoorian [0046]).
Regarding claim 8,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses “The method of claim 1”, but does not explicitly disclose transmitting a release signal indicating releasing the unused portion of the COT after transmitting the release signal.
However, Fakoorian discloses “comprising transmitting a release signal indicating that the
communications device as the release device is releasing the portion of the channel
occupancy time unused by the communications device after the transmission of the
release signal” (See [0064] the network 100 may operate over a shared channel, which may
include shared frequency bands and/or unlicensed frequency bands. To avoid collisions, the
BSs and the UEs may employ a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure to monitor for
transmission opportunities (TXOPs) in the shared channel. A TXOP may also be referred to
as channel occupancy time (COT). [0067] a UE 115 may release an unused reserved resource
to allow another sidelink UE 115 to reclaim the unused resources for sidelink transmissions.
[0046] the inclusion of a resource release indication in SCI allows a sidelink UE to release an
unused reserved sidelink resource and allows another sidelink UE to transmit
in the resource that may otherwise by wasted). Note: AWADIN discloses that the unused
resource is the remaining portion of the COT.
Note: It is implied that the release device releases the unused resource/ unused portion of
the COT, after transmitting the release signal since the release signal serves as an explicit
indication the release device has relinquished its reservation and will no longer occupy the
resource, allowing other devices to utilize the resource.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN and AWADIN ‘790 with the teachings of Fakoorian to include a release indication of unused resources/ portion of the COT, and the motivation to do so would have been to improve resource utilization efficiency (Fakoorian [0046]).
Regarding claim 11,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian discloses “The method of claim 7, wherein the release signal identifies one of the infrastructure equipment or one of the one or more other communications devices to which the one or more remaining shared communications resources are being released” (See Fakoorian, Fig. 7B, [0109] the SCI A 712 may indicate reserved resources per sidelink. For instance, the SCI A may indicate that the
resource 706a is reserved for transmission by the UE 715a to the UE 715b, the
resource 706b is reserved for transmission by the UE 715b to the UE 715a, and the
resource 706c is reserved for transmission by the UE 715b to the UE 715c). Note: the SCI A
transmitted by UE 715 a identifies for each reserved resource, the transmitting and
receiving UEs, thereby indicating to which UE a resource is released.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN and AWADIN ‘790 with the teachings of Fakoorian to include a release indication of unused resources/ portion of the COT, and the motivation to do so would have been to improve resource utilization efficiency (Fakoorian [0046]).
Regarding claim 12,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian discloses “The method of claim 7, wherein the recipient device is one of the one or more other communications devices and the release signal is transmitted via a sidelink channel” (See Fakoorian [0067] a UE 115 may release an unused reserved resource to allow another sidelink UE 115 to reclaim the unused resources for sidelink transmissions. [0046] the inclusion of a resource release indication in SCI allows a sidelink UE to release an unused reserved sidelink resource and allows another sidelink UE to transmit in the resource that may otherwise by wasted).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN and AWADIN ‘790 with the teachings of Fakoorian to include a release indication of unused resources/ portion of the COT, and the motivation to do so would have been to improve resource utilization efficiency (Fakoorian [0046]).
Regarding claim 13,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses “The method of claim 1”, but does not explicitly disclose that the recipient device is defined as a default for the communications device acting as a release device.
However, Fakoorian discloses “wherein the recipient device is defined as a default for the
communications device acting as a release device” (See Fakoorian, Fig. 7B, [0109] the SCI A
712 may indicate reserved resources per sidelink. For instance, the SCI A may indicate that
the resource 706a is reserved for transmission by the UE 715a to the UE 715b, the resource
706b is reserved for transmission by the UE 715b to the UE 715a, and the resource 706c is reserved for transmission by the UE 715b to the UE 715c). Note: The SCI A transmission
implies that UE 715 b serves as the default or primary receiving device, since it the device
receiving the SCI indicating resource release.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN and AWADIN ‘790 with the teachings of Fakoorian to include a release indication of unused resources/ portion of the COT, and the motivation to do so would have been to improve resource utilization efficiency (Fakoorian [0046]).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AWADIN et al. (US
20230035989 A1) in view of AWADIN et al. (US 20220377790 A1) and further in view of Fakoorian et al. (US 20210176669 A1), and further in view of STEFANTOS et al. (US 20230309141 A1).
Regarding claim 4,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian discloses “The method of claim 3”, and discloses transmitting a release signal, See Fakoorian [0067] a UE 115 may release an unused reserved resource to allow another sidelink UE 115 to reclaim the unused resources for sidelink transmissions. [0046] the inclusion of a resource release indication in SCI allows a sidelink UE to release an unused reserved sidelink resource and allows another sidelink UE to transmit in the resource that may otherwise by wasted.
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian discloses transmitting a release signal for releasing unused resources via SCI, but does not explicitly disclose determining the portion of the COT dynamically and indicating it in a release signal.
However, STEFANTOS discloses “wherein the portion of the channel occupancy time
released is determined dynamically and indicated by transmitting a release signal” (See
[0068] The UE may transmit information regarding the COT (e.g., in SCI), including
the remaining COT duration). Note: AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian disclose transmitting a release signal through SCI.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a POSITA before the effective filing date of the
claimed invention to have included the dynamically determined remaining COT duration as
taught by STEFANTOS, in the SCI release signaling as taught by AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian, since both convey COT-related information dynamically through SCI, and the motivation to do so would have been in order to provide better control of COT release and improve channel reuse efficiency.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AWADIN et al. (US
20230035989 A1) in view of AWADIN et al. (US 20220377790 A1) and further in view of in view of LIANG et al. (US 20230363002 A1), and further in view of JIA et al. (US 20210068154 A1).
Regarding claim 6,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses “The method of claim 1”, but does not explicitly disclose receiving a force release signal.
However, LIANG discloses “comprising receiving a force release signal from one of the
infrastructure equipment and one of the other communications devices, and the transmitting at least part of the data by the communications device in one or more of the
communications resources of the channel occupancy time comprises transmitting the at
least part of the data by the communications device in the one or more communications
resources of the channel occupancy time until the force release signal is received” (See FIG.
2 [0078] As seen in FIG. 2, the gNB 5 of this example is configured to be able to cancel the
uplink transmissions of a transmitting UE 3-1 when another UE 3-2 has higher priority uplink
data to transmit (e.g. a higher priority URLLC transmission). In this example, this is achieved
by sending an indication that transmission should be stopped (e.g. in the form of
a COT ‘cancellation’ or ‘release’ indication), to the transmitting UE, using appropriate
signalling during a downlink period of that UE's FFP. Note: In Fig. 2, the UE transmits at least
part of its data until the force release signal is received), “the one or more portions of the
channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period remaining unused by the
communications device after the force release signal is received” (See Fig. 2, After receiving
the force release signal, the remaining portion of the COT remains unused. [0083] The
lower priority transmission is then cancelled, and the higher priority transmission(s) can
continue, if needed, in one or more subsequent FFPs without interference from an ongoing
lower priority transmission from the other UE 3-1. Note: Higher priority transmissions start
in subsequent FFPs, which also means that the remaining portion of the COT remains
unused).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN and AWADIN ‘790 with the teachings of LIANG, and the motivation to do so would have been to provide improvements to a UE initiated access to unlicensed spectrum using a Listen-Before-Talk (LBT) approach (LIANG [0001]).
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and LIANG does not explicitly disclose transmitting an acknowledgment in response to the force release signal.
However, JIA discloses “and transmitting an acknowledgement in response to the force
release signal” (See [0015] the receiving device further receives a channel
release signal from the sending device, and the channel release signal is used to indicate the
one or more other receiving devices to release the to-be-protected channel occupancy
time indicated by the first channel occupancy signal; and the receiving device sends
a release acknowledgement signal in response to the release signal).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN, AWADIN ‘790 and LIANG, with the teachings of JIA, and the motivation to do so would have been to avoid collision between devices that need to perform transmission, thereby improving communication efficiency (JIA [0005]).
Claims 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AWADIN et al. (US 20230035989 A1) in view of AWADIN et al. (US 20220377790 A1), and further in view of Fakoorian et al. (US 20210176669 A1), and further in view of Bhattad et al. (US 20220377795 A1).
Regarding claim 9,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian discloses “The method of claim 8”, but does not explicitly an indication of the portion of the unused COT as an offset from a start of the FFP and a duration.
However, Bhattad discloses “wherein the release signal provides an indication of the
portion of the channel occupancy time unused by the communications device as an offset
from a start of the fixed frame period and a duration of the portion of the remaining one
or more communications resources” (See [0027] A UE, sharing a COT may indicate in the
uplink control indicator (UCI) the remaining COT duration, an offset indication identifying
where the uplink transmission is expected to end). Note: It is implied that the offset is from
a start of the transmission, which is the start of the FFP/ COT.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have included this information about the
portion of the COT to be shared/ unused as taught by Bhattad in the release signal taught by
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian, and the motivation to so do would have been in order to provide better control of COT release and improve channel reuse efficiency.
Regarding claim 10,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian discloses “The method of claim 8”, but does not explicitly disclose a pre-configured index of a look-up table indicating a different offset from a start of the FFP and a duration.
However, Bhattad discloses “wherein the release signal provides an indication of a pre-
configured index of a look-up table each index indicating a different offset from a start of the fixed frame period and a different duration of the portion of the channel occupancy
time released by the communications device” (See [0027] A UE, sharing a COT may
indicate in the uplink control indicator (UCI) the remaining COT duration,
an offset indication identifying where the uplink transmission is expected to end). Note: It is
implied that the offset is from a start of the transmission, which is the start of the FFP/ COT.
[0111] wherein the COT sharing information includes an index to a table shared by the UE
and the serving base station, wherein the table includes a plurality of entries each
identifying one or more of the remaining COT duration, the offset indication indicated as
a remaining transmission time).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have included this information about the
portion of the COT to be shared/ unused as taught by Bhattad in the release signal taught by
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Fakoorian, and the motivation to so do would have been in order to provide better control of COT release and improve channel reuse efficiency.
Claims 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AWADIN et al. (US 20230035989 A1) in view of AWADIN et al. (US 20220377790 A1), and further in view of Singh et al. (US 20230189338 A1).
Regarding claim 17,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 discloses “The method of claim 14, wherein the transmitting, by the communications device as the recipient device, at least part of the data in the one or more released portions of the unlicensed channel from the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period of the release device, comprises transmitting the data by the communications device as the recipient device in the one or more released portions of the unlicensed channel from the channel occupancy time of the fixed frame period of the recipient device as one or more communications resources of a first fixed frame period of the recipient device” (See AWADIN [0096] An initiating device is allowed to grant an authorization to one or more associated responding devices to transmit on the current operating channel within the current COT 54. The Responding Device may perform transmissions on the current operating channel for the remaining COT 54 of the current Fixed Frame Period 51. [0198] The initiating FBE device may not occupy the whole COT. In fact, it may occupy a small portion of COT, which as described above may be labeled as Tx window, especially if the initiating FBE device is a UE. Therefore, such information may allow other nodes to exploit the remaining portion of the COT. Note: The responding/ recipient device uses the remaining/ unused portion of the COT to transmit at least part of its data).
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 does not disclose transmitting data on a COT of a second FFP that occurs after the first FFP.
However, Singh discloses “and one or more communications resources of a channel
occupancy time of a second fixed frame period of the recipient device, which second fixed
frame period of the recipient device occurs as a next fixed frame period after the first fixed
frame period” (See [0019] transmitting uplink data comprises segmenting the uplink data
into two or more segments and one segment of the two or more segments includes an
indication that the wireless device will transmit the next segment of the two or more
segments using wireless device initiated COT in a next FFP of the first plurality of FFPs).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of AWADIN and AWADIN ‘790 with the teachings of Singh, and the motivation to do so would have been to facilitate reliable and low latency transmissions (Singh [0032]).
Regarding claim 18,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Singh discloses “The method of claim 17, wherein the transmitting the data includes not transmitting the data in an idle period of the first or the second fixed frame period of the recipient device” (See AWADIN [0120] Typically, transmissions during the idle window of the FFP are prohibited. See Singh [0094] a transmission may fall over the idle period of FFP, then following solutions can be considered. In some embodiments, the UE skips the transmission if a part of the transmission intersects the idle period. In some embodiments, the UE can transmit the transmission in the resource only that is not part of an idle period in an FFP (i.e., on COT only)).
Regarding claim 19,
AWADIN in view of AWADIN ‘790 and Singh discloses “The method of claim 17, wherein the transmitting the data includes transmitting the data without detecting whether one of the infrastructure equipment or one or more others of the communications devices as the release device transmits signals according to a clear channel assessment, CCA, phase of the unlicensed channel” (See AWADIN [0096] An initiating device is allowed to grant an authorization to one or more associated responding devices to transmit on the current operating channel within the current COT 54. If the gap between the responding device transmission and the last transmission by the initiating device that issued the grant is less than 16 us, the responding device transmit without performing a CCA 53. The Responding Device may perform transmissions on the current operating channel for the remaining COT 54 of the current Fixed Frame Period 51).
Conclusion
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/SALMA AYAD/Examiner, Art Unit 2462
/KEVIN C. HARPER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462
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