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 Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 6-9, and 14-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by LEE et al. (US 20220104126 A1, hereinafter Lee).
Regarding claims 1 and 9 Lee discloses:maintaining a counter to record how many periodic reservations remain to be used for sidelink signal transmission, wherein the periodic reservations are associated with a reservation period and each periodic reservation is associated with at least one sidelink resource; (Paragraph [0189], “When resources in which conflicts occur are reserved according to the same periodicity, the resource conflicts may occur continuously. In order to solve such the problem, when resource conflicts occur continuously, the terminal may release the reserved resources even before the counter value becomes 0, and may select a new resource(s) by performing a random selection operation.”)
determining whether a resource re-selection condition is met before the counter counts to 0, wherein the resource re-selection condition is associated with status of receiving responses corresponding to a subset of the sidelink resources; (Paragraph [0190], “A terminal capable of receiving a PSFCH may perform a PSFCH monitoring operation, and when the number of NACKs (e.g., consecutive NACKs) received by the PSFCH monitoring operation is equal to or greater than a threshold, the terminal may determine that continuous resource conflicts occur.” As stated above resource conflict was a reason for the resource reselection before the counter becomes 0. NACKs are a status of receiving responses.)
and reselecting at least one new sidelink resource for next periodic reservations when the resource re-selection condition is met. (Paragraph [0189], “When resources in which conflicts occur are reserved according to the same periodicity, the resource conflicts may occur continuously. In order to solve such the problem, when resource conflicts occur continuously, the terminal may release the reserved resources even before the counter value becomes 0, and may select a new resource(s) by performing a random selection operation.”)
Specifically regarding claim 9 Lee discloses:
a radio frequency (RF) signal processing device (Paragraph [0091], “In the communication system using the analog beamforming scheme, a beamforming gain may be obtained using analog RF devices (e.g., phase shifter, power amplifier (PA), variable gain amplifier (VGA), and the like) and an antenna array.” And paragraph [0023], “the instructions cause the first terminal to: receive, from a base station, configuration information including information of n periodicities”)
and a processor, (Paragraph [0023], “a first terminal in a communication system may comprise: a processor;”)
Regarding claims 6 and 14 Lee discloses:
resetting the counter to a new value when the new sidelink resource is reselected. (Paragraph [0188], “the counter value becomes 0, the terminal may reset the counter to a value randomly selected between specific values according to the uniform probability.” And paragraph [0189], “the terminal may release the reserved resources even before the counter value becomes 0, and may select a new resource(s) by performing a random selection operation. In this case, the previous counter value or an initial value of the previous counter may be used as the counter value. Alternatively, a new counter value may be set by the above-described method of setting the counter value, and the terminal may use the new counter value”)
Regarding claims 7 and 15 Lee discloses:
the subset of the sidelink resources precludes the sidelink resources for re-transmission. (Paragraph [0199], “Upon receiving the indicator from the first terminal, the second terminal may perform a resource selection operation in the remaining resources excluding the resource(s) indicated by the indicator among all resources (e.g., all candidate resources).” There is a subset of resources that are excluded from selection for retransmission.)
Regarding claims 8 and 16 Lee discloses:wherein each response for the sidelink resources associated with the periodic reservations from the second UE comprises an ACK response or a NACK response. (Paragraph [0131], “A transmitting terminal may transmit SL data to a receiving terminal, and the receiving terminal may transmit a HARQ feedback (e.g., acknowledgement (ACK) or negative ACK (NACK)) for the SL data to the transmitting terminal on a PSFCH.” And paragraph [0224], “A terminal may transmit data (e.g., SL data) and may receive a HARQ feedback for the data on a PSFCH. In this case, a PSFCH periodicity may not coincide with the DRX cycle.”)
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 2-5 and 10-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Fouad et al. (US 20220022179 A1, hereinafter Fouad).
Regarding claims 2 and 10 Lee does not disclose:
the resource re-selection condition comprises: the first UE does not receive any response for each first sidelink resource in all periodic reservations from the second UE in a first number of the reservation periods, wherein the first number of the reservation periods are continuous.
Fouad discloses:
the resource re-selection condition comprises: the first UE does not receive any response for each first sidelink resource in all periodic reservations from the second UE in a first number of the reservation periods, wherein the first number of the reservation periods are continuous. (Paragraph [0046], “the system may allow UEs to reduce their randomly selected number for resource reselection… If feedback is enabled, a UE may elect to reduce its C.sub.reset when it does not receive HARQ feedback for ‘X’ number of times over one or multiple periods… a UE is able to detect three cases when HARQ feedback is enabled (i.e., ACK, NACK and discontinuous transmission (DTX) due to absence of NACK”).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the teachings of Lee in view of Fouad to incorporate a resource reselection condition involving not receiving response for a continuous period of time. One would have been motivated to do this for better reliability and adaptability to work in both periodic and aperiodic.
Regarding claims 3 and 11 Lee does not disclose:
a number M2 is greater than a first threshold, wherein the number M2 is the number of continuous sidelink resources that the first UE does not receive corresponding responses.
Fouad discloses:
a number M2 is greater than a first threshold, wherein the number M2 is the number of continuous sidelink resources that the first UE does not receive corresponding responses. (Paragraph [0046], “the system may allow UEs to reduce their randomly selected number for resource reselection… If feedback is enabled, a UE may elect to reduce its C.sub.reset when it does not receive HARQ feedback for ‘X’ number of times over one or multiple periods… a UE is able to detect three cases when HARQ feedback is enabled (i.e., ACK, NACK and discontinuous transmission (DTX) due to absence of NACK”).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the teachings of Lee in view of Fouad to incorporate a resource reselection condition involving not receiving response for a continuous period of time. One would have been motivated to do this for better reliability and adaptability to work in both periodic and aperiodic.
Regarding claims 4 and 12 Lee does not disclose:
a number M3 is greater than a second threshold, wherein the number M3 is the number of sidelink resources that are first sidelink resources in the periodic reservations and the first UE does not receive corresponding responses from the second UE during a period of time, and the period of time comprises at least one reservation period. Fouad discloses:
a number M3 is greater than a second threshold, wherein the number M3 is the number of sidelink resources that are first sidelink resources in the periodic reservations and the first UE does not receive corresponding responses from the second UE during a period of time, and the period of time comprises at least one reservation period. (Paragraph [0046], “a UE is expected to maintain its periodic selected resources until the end of C.sub.reset… If feedback is enabled, a UE may elect to reduce its C.sub.reset when it does not receive HARQ feedback for ‘X’ number of times over one or multiple periods… a UE is able to detect three cases when HARQ feedback is enabled (i.e., ACK, NACK and discontinuous transmission (DTX) due to absence of NACK).” The sidelink resources in this case are first sidelink resources in the periodic reservation as its related to the first UE (TX UE) chosen resources.)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the teachings of Lee in view of Fouad to incorporate a resource reselection condition involving not receiving response for a continuous period of time. One would have been motivated to do this for better reliability and adaptability to work in both periodic and aperiodic.
Regarding claims 5 and 13 Lee does not disclose:
a number M4 is greater than a third threshold, wherein the number M4 is the number of sidelink resources that the first UE does not receive corresponding responses from the second UE during a period of time, wherein the period of time comprises at least one reservation period.
Fouad discloses:
a number M3 is greater than a second threshold, wherein the number M3 is the number of sidelink resources that are first sidelink resources in the periodic reservations and the first UE does not receive corresponding responses from the second UE during a period of time, and the period of time comprises at least one reservation period. (Paragraph [0046], “a UE is expected to maintain its periodic selected resources until the end of C.sub.reset… If feedback is enabled, a UE may elect to reduce its C.sub.reset when it does not receive HARQ feedback for ‘X’ number of times over one or multiple periods… a UE is able to detect three cases when HARQ feedback is enabled (i.e., ACK, NACK and discontinuous transmission (DTX) due to absence of NACK).”)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the teachings of Lee in view of Fouad to incorporate a resource reselection condition involving not receiving response for a continuous period of time. One would have been motivated to do this for better reliability and adaptability to work in both periodic and aperiodic.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NAM P CAO whose telephone number is (571)270-0614. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jae Y Lee can be reached at 5712703936. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NAM P. CAO/Examiner, Art Unit 2479 /JAE Y LEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2479
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