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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/18/25 was filed after the mailing date of the Non-final Rejection on 8/26/25. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 32-33, 39, 49, 57 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
- Regarding to claim 32, the step “the resource collision indication is mapped to a resource that is not in use for sidelink feedback when the mapping of the resource collision indication is performed.” is conflicted to claim 1, since claim 1 discloses the resource collision indication is multiplexed on one or more PSFCH resource. Appropriate correction is required.
Same rejection for claims 33, 49, 54.
- Regarding to claim 39, the term “the resource collision indication is associated with a cyclic shift.” is not clear what technical field that cyclic shift associated. Same rejection claim 57.
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) 31, 34, 35, 48, 53, 55 and 60 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Belleschi et al. (WO 2020011336) in view of Farag et al. (Patent No. 11937265).
- With respect to claim 31, 34, 48, 53 and 60, Belleschi teaches a method of wireless communication performed by a first user equipment (UE), comprising: identifying a collision on a victim resource based at least in part on an aggressor reservation transmitted by a second UE (e.g. pages 24 lines 37- page 25 line 2 discloses “the second UE 30 detects based on the received SCI 402, 403 that the first UE 20 and the third UE 40 intend to perform D2D radio transmissions on overlapping radio resources, i.e., that the intended D2D radio transmissions are conflicting”); and transmitting, to the second UE via a sidelink feedback channel, a resource collision indication that is associated with at least one of the victim resource or the aggressor reservation, wherein the resource collision indication is multiplexed on one or more physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) resources that are useable for sidelink feedback, wherein the resource collision indication indicates a sidelink resource that is in conflict between the first UE and the second UE and that is the victim resource (see page 25, lines 4-12 disclose “the second UE 30 decides to refrain from sending feedback messages to the first UE 20, 40, e.g., like in the example of Fig. 3, but rather indicates the conflict to the first UE 20 and to the third UE 40 by sending SCI 406 indicating an intention of the second UE 30 to perform a D2D radio transmission on the conflicting resources” and fig. 4 shows the feedback 406). Belleschi explicitly fails to teach the feedback on PSFCH, but Farag teaches the PSFCH including an information related to conflict (see claim 1). Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to implement the method of transmitting conflict information in PSFCH, in sidelink communication.
- With respect to claims 35, 55, the resource collision indication is a sequence-based resource collision indication (see page 13, lines 4-12 discloses “the UE 30 could send the feedback message 204 in the time slot following the transmission of the SCI 202 or in a subsequent time slot, provided that the feedback message 204 is still sent before the time of the intended D2D radio transmission”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 32-33, 49, 54, 57would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 36-47, 50-52, 56, 58-59 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892.
. Examiner's Note: Examiner has cited particular paragraphs or columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHUC H TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3172. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 Flex.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy K. 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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/PHUC H TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471