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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-6 and 8-20 filed on 11/06/2025 have been considered. Arguments regarding the original features of claim 7 have been fully considered and deemed persuasive. Therefore, the rejections in the previous Office Action mailed 08/06/2025 have been withdrawn hereby. However, up further search and consideration, the previously identified prior art is found to have relevant teachings for more clarification and thus applied in the instant Office Action as detailed below.
Claim Objections
Claim 1, 15 and 18 are objected to because of the following informalities: said claims need to spell out PSSCH and SCI. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-6, 10, 12, 15 and 18-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jiang (US 2019/0069240) in view of Mochizuki et al. (US 2025/0267738, “Mochizuki”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Jiang unless otherwise mentioned.
Jiang comprises the following features:
With respect to independent claims:
Regarding claim 1, a method for selecting a resource, executed by first user equipment, comprising:
obtaining a target resource associated with power-saving information ([0083] “the UE of the present disclosure first determines a first time-frequency resource set and K1 signature sequences”, [0031] “The present disclosure provides a method in a base station for power saving. The method includes the following steps of:”, and [0032] “determining a first time-frequency resource set and K1 signature sequences” Note that the cited “a first time-frequency resource set” is equivalent to the recited “target resource”.); and
determining a first resource in the target resource ([0083] “monitors the K1 signature sequences in the first time-frequency resource set; if any one of the K1 signature sequences is found in the first time-frequency resource set, the UE is woken up”. Note that the cited “one of the K1 signature sequences” is equivalent to the recited “first resource” because the target signature sequence is included in the first time-frequency resource set.);
the first resource comprising at least one of the following: a resource of the power-saving information ([0034] “the target signature sequence is one of the K1 signature sequences; a receiver of the target signature sequence includes a first terminal, and, if the target signature sequence is found in the first time-frequency resource set, the first terminal is woken up”), a resource of target transmission, and an idle resource (These alternatives are not examined.);
wherein a time-domain resource of the power-saving information and/or the target resource comprises at least one of the following:
symbols other than at least part of symbols of a first channel or signal in the first symbol; at least part of symbols in symbols used for automatic gain control AGC; a first symbol in symbols used for sidelink transmission;
at least part of symbols in symbols of PSCCH (These alternatives are not examined.).
It is noted that while disclosing resources carrying power-saving information, Jiang does not specifically teach about a time-domain resource of the power-saving information. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Mochizuki as follows;
at least part of symbols in symbols of SCI ([Mochizuki, 0453] “Of the DRX configuration information, information related to time may be configured with time (for example, ms), or may be configured in a unit of system frames radio frames, subframes, slots, mini-slots, symbols, sub-symbols, or the like in the SL.” Note that the configuration information is considered as control information.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Jiang by using the features of Mochizuki in order to increase use efficiency of resources for SL communications such that “a communication terminal configured to perform inter-terminal communication. The communication terminal reports resource information for inter-terminal communication by another communication terminal to the another communication terminal” [Mochizuki, 0086].
Regarding claim 15, a method for processing power saving, executed by second user equipment, comprising:
receiving power-saving information, the power-saving information being associated with a target resource ([0033] “transmitting a target signature sequence in the first time-frequency resource set.”), and the target resource being used for determining a first resource ([0083] “monitors the K1 signature sequences in the first time-frequency resource set; if any one of the K1 signature sequences is found in the first time-frequency resource set, the UE is woken up”. Note that the cited “one of the K1 signature sequences” is equivalent to the recited “first resource” because the target signature sequence is included in the first time-frequency resource set.); the first resource comprising at least one of the following: a resource of the power-saving information ([0034] “the target signature sequence is one of the K1 signature sequences; a receiver of the target signature sequence includes a first terminal, and, if the target signature sequence is found in the first time-frequency resource set, the first terminal is woken up”), a resource of target transmission, and an idle resource (These alternatives are not examined.);
wherein a time-domain resource of the power-saving information and/or the target resource comprises at least one of the following:
symbols other than at least part of symbols of a first channel or signal in the first symbol; at least part of symbols in symbols used for automatic gain control AGC; a first symbol in symbols used for sidelink transmission;
at least part of symbols in symbols of PSCCH (These alternatives are not examined.).
It is noted that while disclosing resources carrying power-saving information, Jiang does not specifically teach about a time-domain resource of the power-saving information. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Mochizuki as follows;
at least part of symbols in symbols of SCI ([Mochizuki, 0453] “Of the DRX configuration information, information related to time may be configured with time (for example, ms), or may be configured in a unit of system frames radio frames, subframes, slots, mini-slots, symbols, sub-symbols, or the like in the SL.” Note that the configuration information is considered as control information.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Jiang by using the features of Mochizuki in order to increase use efficiency of resources for SL communications such that “a communication terminal configured to perform inter-terminal communication. The communication terminal reports resource information for inter-terminal communication by another communication terminal to the another communication terminal” [Mochizuki, 0086].
Regarding claim 18, a communication device, comprising:
a processor, a memory (See Fig. 4 for 480 Memory), and a program or instruction stored on the memory and executable on the processor (See Fig. 4 for 490 Controller/Processor), the program or instruction, when executed by the processor ([0132 and Fig. 4] “the UE 450 includes a memory that stores a computer readable instruction program. The computer readable instruction program generates an action when executed by at least one processor.”), implementing the following steps:
obtaining a target resource associated with power-saving information ([0031] “The present disclosure provides a method in a base station for power saving. The method includes the following steps of:”, and [0032] “determining a first time-frequency resource set and K1 signature sequences” Note that the cited “a first time-frequency resource set” is equivalent to the recited “target resource”.); and
determining a first resource in the target resource ([0033] “transmitting a target signature sequence in the first time-frequency resource set.” Note that the cited “target signature sequence” is equivalent to the recited “first resource”.);
the first resource comprising at least one of the following: a resource of the power-saving information([0034] “the target signature sequence is one of the K1 signature sequences; a receiver of the target signature sequence includes a first terminal, and, if the target signature sequence is found in the first time-frequency resource set, the first terminal is woken up”), a resource of target transmission, and an idle resource (These alternatives are not examined.); or,
receiving power-saving information, the power-saving information being associated with a target resource, and the target resource being used for determining a first resource; the first resource comprising at least one of the following: a resource of the power-saving information, a resource of target transmission, and an idle resource (This alternative is not examined.);
wherein a time-domain resource of the power-saving information and/or the target resource comprises at least one of the following:
symbols other than at least part of symbols of a first channel or signal in the first symbol; at least part of symbols in symbols used for automatic gain control AGC; a first symbol in symbols used for sidelink transmission;
at least part of symbols in symbols of PSCCH (These alternatives are not examined.).
It is noted that while disclosing resources carrying power-saving information, Jiang does not specifically teach about a time-domain resource of the power-saving information. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Mochizuki as follows;
at least part of symbols in symbols of SCI ([Mochizuki, 0453] “Of the DRX configuration information, information related to time may be configured with time (for example, ms), or may be configured in a unit of system frames radio frames, subframes, slots, mini-slots, symbols, sub-symbols, or the like in the SL.” Note that the configuration information is considered as control information.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Jiang by using the features of Mochizuki in order to increase use efficiency of resources for SL communications such that “a communication terminal configured to perform inter-terminal communication. The communication terminal reports resource information for inter-terminal communication by another communication terminal to the another communication terminal” [Mochizuki, 0086].
With respect to dependent claims:
Regarding claims 2 and 19, the method according to claim 1 and the communication device according to claim 18, respectively, wherein the determining a first resource in the target resource comprises:
determining, in the target resource, a first resource corresponding to a specific target parameter; wherein the specific target parameter comprises one or more of target parameters;
wherein the target parameter comprises at least one of the following:
an identifier of user equipment ([0153] “at least one of {the K1 signature sequences, the position of the first time-frequency resource set in the K2 candidate time-frequency resource sets} is related to the ID of the UE U2”); communication-related location information; power-saving mechanism; process information; resource pool information; carrier information; bandwidth part information; an identifier of the power-saving information; information about the resource of the power-saving information; and information about the target resource (These alternatives are not examined.).
Regarding claims 3 and 20, the method according to claim 2 and the communication device according to claim 19, respectively, wherein a corresponding relationship exists between the target parameter and a second resource (See aforesaid [0153] for “is related to the ID of the UE”), the second resource comprising at least one of the following: a resource of the power-saving information, the first resource; and the target resource.
Regarding claim 5, the method according to claim 1, wherein the power-saving information and/or the target resource are/is carried on at least one of the following: a physical sidelink control channel PSCCH; a physical sidelink feedback channel PSFCH; a physical sidelink shared channel PSSCH (These alternatives are not examined.); and a sequence (See aforesaid [0033].).
Regarding claim 6, the method according to claim 1, wherein a frequency-domain resource of the power-saving information and/or the target resource comprises at least one of the following:
at least part of a frequency-domain resource in a target resource block (aforesaid [0033] “a target signature sequence in the first time-frequency resource set”, and [0106] “The MAC sublayer 302 is also responsible for allocating between UEs various radio resources (i.e., resource block) in a cell.”); and at least part of a frequency-domain resource in a target subchannel; wherein the target resource block comprises at least one of the following: a resource block having a first identifier in a resource pool or bandwidth part or carrier; a resource block of a subchannel other than a subchannel occupied by first SCI in a resource occupied by PSSCH scheduled by the first sidelink control information SCI;a resource block other than a resource block occupied by the first SCI in the resource occupied by PSSCH scheduled by the first SCI; a resource block other than the resource pool in a resource of the bandwidth part; a resource block other than a resource corresponding to PSFCH or PSFCH bitmaps in the resource of the bandwidth part; a resource block other than a resource occupied by all or part of subchannels in a resource of the resource pool; and a resource block other than the resource corresponding to PSFCH or PSFCH bitmaps in the resource of the resource pool; wherein the target subchannel comprises at least one of the following: a subchannel other than a subchannel occupied by first SCI in a resource occupied by PSSCH scheduled by the first sidelink control information SCI; a subchannel other than a subchannel occupied by first SCI in a resource occupied by PSSCH scheduled by the first SCI; a subchannel other than a resource pool in a bandwidth part; a subchannel other than a resource corresponding to PSFCH or PSFCH bitmaps in the bandwidth part; a subchannel other than a resource occupied by all or part of subchannels in a resource pool; a subchannel other than the resource corresponding to PSFCH or PSFCH bitmaps in the resource pool; a subchannel in the resource pool, a frequency domain of which satisfies a first condition; a subchannel having a second identifier; a subchannel having a first number of resource blocks; and a subchannel comprising at least a subchannel where the power-saving information is located (These alternatives are not examined.).
Regarding claim 10, the method according to claim 1, further comprising: obtaining information about the power-saving information and/or information about the target resource; wherein the information about the power-saving information and/or the information about the target resource comprise/comprises at least one of the following: information about the frequency-domain resource; information about the time-domain resource ([0044] “the first terminal is woken up, the second signaling is a physical layer signaling, the second signaling includes configuration information for the first radio signal, and the configuration information includes at least one of {occupied time domain resource, occupied frequency domain resource, modulation and coding scheme}”); the period of the resource; the number of the resource; the priority of the resource; and the proportion in the resource pool or at a given time (These alternatives are not examined.).
Regarding claim 12, the method according to claim 1, further comprising: transmitting the power-saving information (aforesaid [0033] “transmitting a target signature sequence in the first time-frequency resource set.”).
Claim(s) 8 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jiang (US 2019/0069240) in view of Mochizuki et al. (US 2025/0267738, “Mochizuki”) and further in view of Hwang et al. (US 2022/0394614, “Hwang”).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Jiang unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 8, it is noted that while disclosing resources carrying power-saving information, Jiang does not specifically teach about a repetition number of the resource. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Hwang as follows;
the method according to claim 1, wherein a time-domain resource of the power-saving information satisfies at least one of the following conditions: the number of repetitions on the time domain being not less than a second number (This alternative is not examined.); having a third number of repetitions on the time domain ([Hwang, 0208] “If the unit by which a repetition number is increased is an available time domain resource, the value k0 may be determined as the number of slots or subframes in which a power saving signal (or WUS) may be transmitted like a valid DL subframe.”); and occupying Y time-domain units, Y being equal to the number of time-domain units used for sidelink transmission (These alternatives are not examined.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Jiang by using the features of Hwang in order to effectively monitor resources such that “a method capable of maximizing energy efficiency of an NB-IoT device.” [Hwang, 0011].
Claim(s) 11 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jiang (US 2019/0069240) in view of Mochizuki et al. (US 2025/0267738, “Mochizuki”) and further in view of Lu (US 2022/0408363).
Examiner’s note: in what follows, references are drawn to Jiang unless otherwise mentioned.
Regarding claim 11, it is noted that while disclosing resources carrying power-saving information, Jiang does not specifically teach about a parameter. It, however, had been known in the art before the effective date of the instant application as shown by Lu as follows;
the method according to claim 1, further comprising:
obtaining a transmission parameter ([Lu, 0082] “the second UE may re-determine a data transmission and reception related parameter under a power saving mechanism of a side link between the first UE and the second UE indicated by the configuration information according to the modification information.”); and
performing transmission on the first resource according to the transmission parameter ([Lu, 0082] “the new configuration information may indicate a data transmission and reception related parameter under the power saving mechanism of the side link between the first UE and the second UE updated according to the modification information.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of instant application to modify Jiang by using the features of Lu in order to effectively setup power saving mechanism such that “the configuration information is used for indicating a data transmission and reception related parameter under a power saving mechanism of a side link between the first UE and the second UE.” [Lu, 0006].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 4, 9, 13-14 and 16-17 were objected with allowable subject matter in the previous office action dated 08/06/2025 with reasons for allowance given then, and said claims remain objected now.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Harry H. Kim whose telephone number and email address are as follows; 571-272-5009, harry.kim2@uspto.gov.
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/HARRY H KIM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411