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 .
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, 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) 1-7,9-10,20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wu et al (US 11937215 B2) hereinafter as Wu in view of Ganesan et al (US 20230309066 A1) hereinafter as Ganesan.
Regarding claim(s) 1 and 20, Wu discloses a method comprising:
determining, by a user equipment (UE), a resource pool for reception of a sidelink (SL)- positioning reference signal (PRS) (See Fig(s). 5, a plurality of sidelink communication resource pools and sidelink-positioning reference signal (SL-PRS) resource pools, See ¶ 101, The assignment of the reserved SL-PRS resources may be indicated in the SL-PRS resource reservation message 516 sent by the reserving UE, or it may be determined based on a pre-determined rule.);
receiving a slot at the UE (See Fig(s). 2, 4 slot structures, See ¶ 46, occupying resources scheduled for ongoing slot transmissions for the same or for different UEs. Any number of resource blocks may be utilized within a subframe or slot.);
determining, by the UE, whether the slot comprises resources in the resource pool for the SL-PRS (See Fig(s). 6, See ¶ 107, The SCI-2 format 600 may also include a SL-PRS resource reservation indicator 626. The SL-PRS resource reservation indicator 626 may indicate whether the resource for the SL-PRS transmission is reserved once (e.g., the SL-PRS transmission is a one-shot transmission that occurs only once), whether the resource for the SL-PRS transmission is reserved a predetermined or dynamically configured multiple number of times (e.g., for a predetermined or configured multiple number of SL-PRS transmissions), or whether the resource for the SL-PRS transmission is reserved with an ongoing predetermined periodicity).
Wu fails to disclose decoding, by the UE, SL control information (SCI) of the slot using a first format that indicates SL-PRS resource allocation, in case that the slot comprises the resources in the resource pool.
Ganesan discloses decoding, by the UE, SL control information (SCI) of the slot using a first format that indicates SL-PRS resource allocation, in case that the slot comprises the resources in the resource pool (See Fig(s). 4 step 404, See ¶ 5, 83-85, a UE may be configured with one or more PRS offsets for sidelink PRS transmission and the UE may decode SCI and check a PRS offset in every slot as part of sensing. In such embodiments, in candidate resource selection, the UE reports a set of candidate resources belonging to a resource pool per PRS offset sorted based on estimated averaged RSRP values in each of the candidate resources (e.g., RBs and/or subchannels). Using a dedicated resource pool with data transmission, the UE populates a time frequency grid for slot transmission so that PRS does not conflict with demodulation reference signals (DMRS).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Ganesan within Wu, so as to enhance overall network performance by having available amount of resources for the SL-PRS as needed between devices of interest.
Further with respect to claim 20, Wu discloses See Fig(s). 10 a memory 1005 and processor 1004.
Regarding claim(s) 2, Wu discloses further comprising decoding, by the UE, the SCI using a second format for a physical SL shared channel (PSSCH), in case that the slot does not comprise the resources in the resource pool (See ¶ 67-68, four different SCI-2 formats may be supported. SCI-1 may include other information that is useful for establishing and decoding a PSSCH resource.).
Regarding claim(s) 3, Wu discloses wherein the resource pool is configured or preconfigured via radio resource control (RRC) signaling (See ¶ 63, A radio resource control (RRC) configuration of the resource pools may be either pre-configured (e.g., a factory setting on the UE determined).
Regarding claim(s) 4, Wu discloses wherein decoding the SCI using the first format indicates time and frequency resource allocation information of the SL-PRS including an SL-PRS resource element offset and a comb size in a frequency domain, and a starting symbol of the SL-PRS and a symbol length in a time domain (See Fig(s). 2, see resource grid 204, See ¶ 43, An RE, which is 1 subcarrier x 1 symbol, is the smallest discrete part of the time—frequency grid, and contains a single complex value representing data from a physical channel or signal. Depending on the modulation utilized in a particular implementation, each RE may represent one or more bits of information.).
Regarding claim(s) 5, Wu discloses wherein the SCI is in a physical SL control channel (PSCCH) portion of the slot, and the PSCCH portion occupies a first two symbols or a first three symbols of the slot (See ¶ 67, SCI-1 may be transmitted on a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH)…. See ¶ 71).
Regarding claim(s) 6, Wu discloses wherein a portion of the SCI is in an SL-PRS portion of the slot, and symbols containing the portion of the SCI are multiplexed with SL-PRS symbols in time (See Fig(s). 8, See ¶ 106, The SL-PRS frequency resource indicator 624 may be a parameter indicating whether the SL-PRS occupies an entire frequency resource of the SL-PRS resource pool or a portion thereof. ).
Regarding claim(s) 7, Wu discloses wherein the PSCCH portion is repeated in a frequency domain of the slot (See ¶ 75).
Regarding claim(s) 9, Wu discloses wherein a first symbol at a beginning of the slot is for automatic gain control (AGC) training for the SL-PRS, and the first symbol is a repetition of a first SL-PRS symbol or a repetition of a first PSCCH symbol (See ¶ 76, See Fig(s). 4).
Regarding claim(s) 10, Wu discloses wherein the resources of the slot are shared by a plurality of UEs (See ¶ 149, The SL-PRS resource reservation message transmitting/receiving circuitry 1044 may further be configured to reserve a different SL-PRS resource identified in a different SL-PRS resource reservation message for use by another wireless communication device and/or reserve the first SL-PRS resource in the first SL-PRS resource reservation message for a shared use by the wireless communication device and another wireless communication device.).
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wu et al (US 11937215 B2) hereinafter as Wu in view of Ganesan et al (US 20230309066 A1) hereinafter as Ganesan further in view of Yoshioka et al (US 20220279451 A1) hereinafter as Yoshioka.
Regarding claim(s) 8, Yoshioka discloses wherein a transmission power for a symbol containing the PSCCH portion and repetition of the PSCCH portion is equal to that of other symbols in the slot (See ¶ 101, the transmit power between the symbols is kept constant in one slot. For example, in FIG. 12, when the total transmit power allocated to one symbol is P in a portion where PSCCH and PSSCH are multiplexed, the total transmit power allocated to one symbol is P in the portion where the CSI-RS and PSSCH of the slot in FIG. 12 are multiplexed.). If the power is changed during the interval of one slot, it takes time for the RF device to change the power and a problem occurs on transmission characteristics of the RF device and therefore constant values are considered.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the teachings of Yoshioka within Wu, so to avoid power change transmission issues in the RF device and maintain constant power values for each slot.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Raj Jain whose telephone number is (571) 272-3145. The examiner can normally be reached on M-Th ~8 ~6.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Derrick Ferris can be reached on 571-272-3123. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RAJ JAIN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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