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 .
Claim Status
This office action is in response to the communication(s) filed on 03/31/2026.
Claim(s) 1, 4-9, and 13-15 is/are currently presenting for examination.
Claim(s) 1, and 14-15 is/are independent claim(s).
Claim(s) 1, 4-9, and 13-15 is/are rejected.
This action has been made NON-FINAL.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 03/31/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 03/31/2026 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 4-9, and 13-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US_20230232428_A1_Li in view of US_20230403730_A1_Shen.
Regarding claim 1, Li discloses a method comprising: generating a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) including a sidelink inter-UE coordination information MAC CE, based on logical channel prioritization (Li paragraph 715, “…when generating a MAC PDU, the UE may prioritize the first MAC CE (e.g., inter-coordination MAC CE that may comprise the inter-UE coordination information/message) over the second MAC CE (e.g., DRX command MAC CE or SL CSI reporting MAC CE). Alternatively and/or additionally, one or more logical channels and one or more MAC CEs may be prioritized in the following order when multiplexing in a MAC PDU: data from Sidelink Control Channel (SCCH) may be prioritized over the first MAC CE (e.g., an inter-coordination MAC CE that may comprise an inter-UE coordination information/message…”); transmitting, to a second device, first sidelink control information (SCI) for scheduling of a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) through a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH) (Li paragraph 5, “…The first UE transmits the first SCI to one or more UEs comprising a second UE, wherein the first SCI schedules a first Physical Sidelink Shared Channel (PSSCH) transmission for transmitting the MAC PDU”, paragraph 690, “In NR Rel-16 sidelink, a sidelink control information (SCI) can indicate/allocate/schedule at most three sidelink resources (e.g., PSSCH resources) for a first Transport Block (TB) (e.g., the same TB), e.g., via Frequency resource assignment field and Time resource assignment field in the SCI. In the present disclosure, the term “indicate/allocate/schedule” may refer to indicate, allocate and/or schedule. A first PSSCH resource (e.g., one PSSCH resource and/or an initial PSSCH resource) of the at most three PSSCH resources and the SCI are in the same sidelink slot. The SCI may comprise a first-stage SCI (e.g., SCI format 1-A) and a second-stage SCI (e.g., SCI format 2-A or SCI format 2-B). The first-stage SCI may be transmitted via PSCCH. The second-stage SCI may be transmitted via multiplexing the second-stage SCI with the indicated/allocated/scheduled PSSCH in the same sidelink slot. In other words, in NR Rel-16 sidelink, the SCI can indicate/allocate/schedule at most two PSSCH resources, for the first TB, in later sidelink slots (e.g., sidelink slots after the sidelink slot in which the SCI is transmitted with the PSSCH resource)”); and transmitting, to the second device, the MAC PDU and second SCI through the PSSCH (Li paragraphs 728-733), wherein, in a procedure related to the logical channel prioritization, an order of priorities, with the highest priority listed first (Li paragraphs 440, and 715-716), is: data from a sidelink control channel (SCCH) (Li paragraph 441); a sidelink channel state information (CSI) reporting MAC CE (Li paragraph 442); the sidelink inter-UE coordination information MAC CE (Li paragraphs 715-716); sidelink discontinuous reception (DRX) command MAC CE (Li paragraphs 715-716); and data from a sidelink traffic channel (STCH) (Li paragraph 443), but does not explicitly disclose wherein the first SCI includes information related to whether the second SCI is related to inter-UE coordination information.
Shen discloses wherein the first SCI includes information related to whether the second SCI is related to inter-UE coordination information (Shen paragraph 97, “To be specific, 2-bit information in the 1st-stage SCI may be used to indicate the format of the 2nd-stage SCI… Depending on the current design of the 1st-stage SCI, two bits are used to indicate the formation of the 2nd-stage SCI, so “10” or “11” is used to indicate the new 2nd-stage SCI format for carrying the coordination information”).
Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Shen’s two bits of the 1st-stage SCI are used to indicate the formation of the 2nd-stage SCI, so “10” or “11” is used to indicate the new 2nd-stage SCI format for carrying the coordination information in Li’s system to improve the overhead efficiency (Shen paragraph 38). This method for improving the system of Li was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Shen. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Li and Shen to obtain the invention as specified in claim 1.
Regarding claim 4, Li and Shen disclose the method of claim 1, and Li further discloses wherein a priority of a request based sidelink inter-UE coordination information MAC CE is higher than a priority of a condition based sidelink inter-UE coordination information MAC CE (Li paragraph 640, “UE can sort and prioritize request-based feedback over condition-based and keep relevant resource sets separate”).
Regarding claim 5, Li and Shen disclose the method of claim 1, and Li further discloses wherein the procedure related to the logical channel prioritization is performed based on remaining space of the MAC PDU (Li paragraphs 429, 432).
Regarding claim 6, Li and Shen disclose the the method of claim 1, and Li further discloses wherein at least one transmission resource is selected by the second device, based on the sidelink inter-UE coordination information MAC CE (Li paragraph 524, “A UE that received inter-UE coordination information from UE-A and uses it for resource (re-)selection is UE-B”).
Regarding claim 7, Li and Shen disclose the method of claim 1, and Li further discloses wherein the sidelink inter-UE coordination information MAC CE includes information related to a preferred resource set (Li paragraphs 541-515).
Regarding claim 8, Li and Shen disclose the method of claim 1, and Li further discloses wherein the sidelink inter-UE coordination information MAC CE includes information related to a non-preferred resource set (Li paragraphs 541,516).
Regarding claim 9, Li and Shen disclose the method of claim 1, and Li further discloses wherein the procedure related to the logical channel prioritization is for including a MAC serving data unit (SDU) or a MAC CE in the MAC PDU in order of priority of a related logical channel (LCH) (Li paragraph 444, “The MAC entity shall multiplex a MAC CE and MAC SDUs in a MAC PDU according to clauses 5.22.1.4.1 and 6.1.6.”).
Regarding claim 13, Li and Shen disclose the method of claim 1, and Li further discloses wherein the MAC PDU is generated based on a radio resource control (RRC) connection being established between a first device and the second device (Li paragraph 449, “The MAC entity shall for each pair of the Source Layer-2 ID and the Destination Layer-2 ID corresponding to a PC5-RRC connection which has been established by upper layers”).
Regarding claim 14, Li and Shen disclose the limitations as set forth in claim 1, and Li further discloses a first device comprising: one or more processors; one or more transceivers; and one or more transceivers connected to the one or more processors and storing instructions (Li figures 2-3).
Regarding claim 15, Li and Shen disclose the limitations as set forth in claim 1, and Li further discloses a processing device adapted to control a first device, the processing device comprising: one or more processors; and one or more memories connected to the one or more processors and storing instructions (Li figures 2-3).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WEIBIN HUANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3695. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9:30AM - 6:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy Kundu can be reached at (571)272-8586. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/W.H/Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471
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