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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 9/10/2026 has been entered.
Claims 1-15 and 21-25 are pending.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4-7, 9-11, 13, 14, 21, 22, 24, and 25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nguyen et al. (US Pub. No. 2024/0397529) in view of Balasubramanian et al. (US Pub. No. 2023/0140785) in view of Lee et al. (US Pub. No. 2020/0146048).
Regarding claims 1 and 22, Nguyen discloses an apparatus (figure 3 310 or 350; paragraph 56: base station) comprising:
interface circuitry (figure 3 RF transceivers 318 or 354); and
processing circuitry (figure 3 processor 375 or 359) coupled with the interface circuitry, the processing circuitry to:
generate a RRC message to include second configuration information to configure a user equipment (UE) with inter-UE coordination (IUC) having a plurality of IUC parameters (figure 10A & B, paragraph 140, 143 and Table 1: UE 1002 receives signaling 1018/1020 that indicates one or more types of inter-UE coordination information, the potential types include a type of resource set, identifier, resource reservation interval, transmission priority level, number of sub-channels for the inter-UE coordination, etc.) to be used to avoid interference over a sidelink resources (figure 10A step 1020 enable/disable Types of IUC in Table 1; paragraph 140: UE-A receives from network/base station one or more types of inter-UE coordination information) of a resource pool, wherein the IUC configuration is specifically associated with the sidelink resource pool (paragraphs 54, 85, 106, 140, Table 1, 142: resource pool is used for IUC configuration communication); and
output the RRC message for transmission to the UE via the interface circuitry (figure 10A step 1020 enable/disable Types of IUC in Table 1; figure 10B message 1018; paragraphs 140 and 143: UE-A receives from network/base station one or more types of inter-UE coordination information).
Nguyen does not teach generating a radio resource control message to include first configuration information to configure a user equipment (UE) with a sidelink resource pool.
However, a base station configures a UE with a sidelink resource pool via RRC signaling is known in 5G/NR (Balasubramanian’s paragraph 85).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in Nguyen generating a radio resource control message to include first configuration information to configure a user equipment (UE) with a sidelink resource pool.
The motivation would have been for dynamic configuration from a base station.
Nguyen and Balasubramanian do not disclose a RRC message to include first and second configurations (multiple configurations).
However, in the same field of sidelink communication, Lee discloses a base station sends a RRC message to include multiple configurations to an UE (figure 13 step S1314 and paragraphs 171-173: in step S1314, the gNB sends multiple SPS configurations to UE1 via RRC reconfiguration message).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in Nguyen and Balasubramanian a RRC message to include first and second configurations.
The motivation would have been for message bundling (bandwidth/process/power saving).
Regarding claims 4 and 25, all limitations of claims 1 and 22 are disclosed above. Nguyen discloses the UE is configured for autonomous sidelink resource allocation (paragraphs 32, 66 and 67 in view of paragraph 7: figure 10A: steps 1028; paragraph 142: UE autonomously selects sidelink resource).
Regarding claims 5, 11, and 24, all limitations of claims 1, 9, and 22 are disclosed above. Nguyen does not explicitly disclose the plurality of IUC parameters includes a first parameter to enable or disable an explicit IUC request.
However, Nguyen discloses the plurality of IUC parameters includes a parameter to enable or disable an IUC feature (paragraphs 140 and 144 and Table 1). Nguyen’s paragraph 145 discloses various other conditions similar to an IUC request to trigger an inter-UE coordination information.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in Nguyen the plurality of IUC parameters includes a first parameter to enable or disable an explicit IUC request.
The motivation would have been for configuration by a base station.
Regarding claims 6 and 13, all limitations of claims 1 and 9 21are disclosed above. Nguyen further teaches the plurality of IUC parameters includes a first parameter to indicate a trigger condition that is to trigger an IUC message (paragraphs 8, 41, 143, 145 and Table 2. Figure 11a and b steps 1118/1120).
Regarding claims 7 and 14, all limitations of claims 1 and 9 are disclosed above. Nguyen’s embodiment in figure 10A does not teach but Nguyen’s embodiment in figure 11A discloses wherein the configuration information is to configure at least one trigger for an IUC message, the at least one trigger to include: detecting a resource conflict with at least a threshold confidence level (figure 11A; paragraph 146 in view of Table 2 conditions for triggering inter-UE coordination).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in Nguyen the configuration information is to configure at least one trigger for an IUC message, the at least one trigger to include: detecting a resource conflict with at least a threshold confidence level.
The motivation would have been for another way/condition for triggering IUC message from UE-A.
Regarding claim 9, Nguyen discloses a method of operating a processor, the method comprising:
receiving, from a base station, a radio resource control (RRC) message with second configuration information includes an inter-UE coordination (IUC) configuration having a plurality of IUC parameters (figure 10A & B, paragraph 140, 143 and Table 1: UE 1002 receives signaling 1018/1020 that indicates one or more types of inter-UE coordination information, the potential types include a type of resource set, identifier, resource reservation interval, transmission priority level, number of sub-channels for the inter-UE coordination, etc.) to be used to avoid interference over a sidelink resource (figure 10A step 1020 enable/disable Types of IUC in Table 1; paragraph 140: UE-A receives from network/base station one or more types of inter-UE coordination information), wherein the IUC configuration is specifically associated with the sidelink resource pool (paragraphs 54, 85, 106, 140, Table 1, 142: resource pool is used for IUC configuration communication); and
detecting a sidelink resource conflict (figure 10A step 1026; paragraph 141: UE-A sensing for sidelink resource reservations/resource conflict avoidance); and
outputting an IUC message for transmission to a UE user equipment (UE) based on the IUC configuration and the sidelink resource conflict (figure 10A step 1032 Inter-UE Coordination information; paragraphs140-142: UE-A transmits IUC message to UE-B).
Nguyen does not teach receiving a radio resource control message to include a first configuration information to configure a user equipment (UE) with a sidelink resource pool.
However, a base station configures a UE with a sidelink resource pool via RRC signaling is known in 5G/NR (Balasubramanian’s paragraph 85).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in Nguyen generating a radio resource control message to include first configuration information to configure a user equipment (UE) with a sidelink resource pool.
The motivation would have been for dynamic configuration from a base station.
Nguyen and Balasubramanian do not disclose a RRC message to include first and second configurations (multiple configurations).
However, in the same field of sidelink communication, Lee discloses a base station sends a RRC message to include multiple configurations to an UE (figure 13 step S1314 and paragraphs 171-173: in step S1314, the gNB sends multiple SPS configurations to UE1 via RRC reconfiguration message).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in Nguyen and Balasubramanian a RRC message to include first and second configurations.
The motivation would have been for message bundling (bandwidth/process/power saving).
Regarding claim 10, all limitations of claim 9 are disclosed above. Nguyen further teaches the first or the second UE is configured to autonomously select sidelink resources from a resource pool for sidelink transmissions (paragraphs 32, 66 and 67 in view of paragraph 7: figure 10A: steps 1028 and 1032: UE autonomously selects sidelink resource).
Regarding claim 21, all limitations of claim 9 are disclosed above. Nguyen further teaches receiving, from the UE, an indication of an IUC capability of the UE (paragraph 145: explicit IUC request).
Claim(s) 2, 12, and 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nguyen et al. (US Pub. No. 2024/0397529) in view of Balasubramanian et al. (US Pub. No. 2023/0140785) in view of Lee et al. (US Pub. No. 2020/0146048) in view of Shin et al. (US Pub. No. 2022/0417919).
Regarding claims 2, 12, and 23, all limitations of claims 1, 9, and 22 are disclosed above. Nguyen does not teach but Shin discloses receiving a report of an IUC capability of the UE; (paragraphs 8, 105-106 in view of figure 4: UE transmits inter-UE coordination capability to base station, base station determines UE’s capability and allocate sidelink resource).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in Nguyen receiving a report of an IUC capability of the UE.
The motivation would have been to become UE-A (paragraph 103).
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nguyen et al. (US Pub. No. 2024/0397529) in view of Balasubramanian et al. (US Pub. No. 2023/0140785) in view of Lee et al. (US Pub. No. 2020/0146048) in view of Ganesan et al. (US Pub. No. 2024/0057121).
Regarding claim 3, all limitations of claim 1 are disclosed above. Nguyen and Balasubramanian further teach the sidelink resource pool is a first sidelink resource pool, the IUC configuration is a first IUC configuration (see claim 1’s rejection). Nguyen and Balasubramanian do not teach receiving third configuration information to configure the UE with a second sidelink resource pool and fourth configuration information that is a second IUC configuration that is specifically associated with the second sidelink resource pool.
Balasubramanian further teaches plurality of resource pools are configured/transmitted via RRC (paragraph 85). Ganesan discloses a base station sends a message to disable inter-UE coordination functionality per resource pool (paragraphs 96, 110, and 111).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in Nguyen receiving third configuration information to configure the UE with a second sidelink resource pool and fourth configuration information that is a second IUC configuration that is specifically associated with the second sidelink resource pool.
The motivation would have been for congestion in per resource pool (paragraph 110).
Claim(s) 8 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nguyen et al. (US Pub. No. 2024/0397529) in view of Balasubramanian et al. (US Pub. No. 2023/0140785) in view of Lee et al. (US Pub. No. 2020/0146048) in view of Ganesan et al. (US Pub. No. 2024/0057121).
Regarding claims 8 and 15, all limitations of claims 1 and 9 are disclosed above. Balasubramanian further teaches plurality of resource pools are configured/transmitted via RRC (paragraph 85). Nguyen does not teach but Ganesan discloses receiving an indication of a channel busy ratio (CBR) corresponding to the sidelink resource; and generating the configuration information based further on the indication of the CBR (paragraph 110).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in Nguyen receiving an indication of a channel busy ratio (CBR) corresponding to the sidelink resource; and generating the configuration information based further on the indication of the CBR.
The motivation would have been for channel status/condition.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remark, filed 9/10/2026, with respect to 35 U.S.C. 112(a) rejection have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.S.C. 112(a) rejection of claims 5, 11, and 24 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see Remark, filed 9/10/2026, with respect to 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejection have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejection of claims 1-8 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-15 and 21-25 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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/TITO Q PHAM/Examiner, Art Unit 2466
/FARUK HAMZA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2466
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