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 .
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.
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 1-7 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.
Claim 1 recites, in part “transmitting, by the first wireless device to a second wireless device, in the one or more consecutive time slots the MCSt, the MCSt,” rendering the scope of the claim ambiguous with respect to the repetitive use of the term “the MCSt”.
Claims 2-7 are dependent on claim 1 and do not alleviate the lack of clarity in the independent claims; accordingly, claims 1-7 are rejected as indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b).
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, 6-10, 13-17 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al. (US 2021/0219268 A1) in view of Qualcomm Incorporated, “3GPP TSG RAN WG1 Meeting #109-e, e-meeting, May 9th – May 20th, 2022, R1-2205033, hereafter D1.
Regarding claim 1, Li appears to disclose a method comprising:
receiving, by a first wireless device from a base station, a message enabling a multi-slot transmission in a resource pool ([0166]-[0167] disclosing sidelink resource pool configuration is sent via RRC over the Uu interface (i.e., between gNB and UE), as system information (SI); or specifically to a UE using dedicated RRC message over Uu; [0132] disclosing receiving the resource pool configuration selection of one or more resources in the resource pool and sending one or more transmissions transmitting in the selected resources; Fig. 26C, [0444], [0447] the UE selects resources and sends TB1 in an initial transmission of TB1 with SCI reservation of retransmission of TB1);
selecting, by the first wireless device, based on a first priority value of a plurality of transport blocks (TBs) in the multi-slot transmission, one or more time slots for the multi-slot transmission, wherein each of the plurality of TBs is associated with a respective priority value (Fig. 16, step 5, [0428] disclosing at step 5, the UE selects a subset of resources as candidate resources from the set of available resources, based on the TB size, latency requirement, priority level, periodic or aperiodic (e.g., event triggered), channel congestion, etc., for the new data to be transmitted.; Fig. 26C, [0444], [0447] the UE selects resources and sends TB1 in an initial transmission of TB1 with SCI reservation of retransmission of TB1 (i.e., they each have the same priority level); Li appears to disclose a second embodiment that reads on the claim features at: [0128] disclosing pre-emption for high-priority to override reserved resources; Fig. 16, step 7 [0430] disclosing the UE may decide if it can pre-empt the resources, scheduled or reserved by other UE(s) with higher latency, lower priority, or lower reliability, for its high priority or low latency transmission.); and
transmitting, by the first wireless device to a second wireless device, in the one or more time slots the multi-slot transmission, wherein a first sidelink control information (SCI) of the multi-slot transmission indicates a second priority value of the plurality of TBs for the multi-slot transmission (Fig. 26C, [0444], [0447] the UE selects resources and sends TB1 in an initial transmission of TB1 with SCI reservation of retransmission of TB1; it is inherent in mode 2 resource selection that SCI transmitted with the SCI reserving resources indicates the priority level of the transmission such that other UEs can consider said priority value in determining whether to pre-empt said transmission as in said second embodiment disclosed at: [0430] disclosing “The UE may explicitly indicate that the selected resource(s) is pre-empted from the other UE's resource(s) in its SA SCI or SCI associated to its data transmission, e.g., pre-empted=1 or implicitly indicate the pre-emption in its SA SCI or SCI associated to its data transmission using a reserved priority value, e.g., priority=“111” or “000” for a 3-bit priority field in a SCI.”; Fig. 16, step 13, [0438] disclosing “[a]t step 13 for pre-emption transmission, the UE may…transmit the data over the pre-empted resources. The UE must broadcast the pre-emption indication (e.g., in a new format SCI for pre-emption announcement or with the pre-emption flag set “1” in an SA SCI or with a preserved priority value “111” or “000” in an SA SCI) with the pre-empted other UE's reserved resources or include the pre-emption in the SCI sent together with the data transmission to the receiver(s).”).
Li does not disclose the following; however, D1 discloses a multi-consecutive slots transmission (MCSt) (Section 2.1.2 NR Sidelink discussing resource selection and reservation in a similar manner to Li in which for the reservation step, the UE communicates via SL (e.g., sidelink) control information (SCI) up to two reserved resources that can be potentially used for retransmissions for a single TB and that these aspects should be revisited for NR SL over unlicensed spectrum; pp 5-6 Section 2.2 Enhancements for multiple consecutive TB transmissions, proposal 2 introduce back-to-back transmissions over multiple consecutive slots).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the techniques of Li to introduce multi-consecutive slots transmission (MCSt) as taught by D1 because the teaching lies in D1 that if the gap between slots is too long, the UE will need to perform an additional channel access procedure to transmit another TB (Section 2.2) and that back-to-back transmissions over multiple slots can improve channel access efficiency and throughput.
Regarding claim 2, Li suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the first priority value is one of: a smallest priority value, an average priority value, or a largest priority value, of a plurality of priority values of the plurality of TBs in the MCSt ([0428] disclosing ranges of priority (e.g., very high, high, low) and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art using common sense as a guide that there is a highest and a lowest priority in the range of priorities and that the TB cold be associated with either the highest or the lowest priority, as well as any priority values in between; see also [0430] and [0438] disclosing a pre-emption transmission includes priority “000” (i.e., lowest) or priority “111” (i.e., highest) priority values).
Regarding claim 3, Li suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the second priority value is one of: a smallest priority value, an average priority value, or a largest priority value, of a plurality of priority values of the plurality of TBs in the MCSt ([0428] disclosing ranges of priority (e.g., very high, high, low) and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art using common sense as a guide that there is a highest and a lowest priority in the range of priorities and that the TB cold be associated with either the highest or the lowest priority, as well as any priority values in between; see also [0430] and [0438] disclosing a pre-emption transmission includes priority “000” (i.e., lowest) or priority “111” (i.e., highest) priority values).
Regarding claim 6, Li as modified above with D1 suggests the method of claim 1, wherein the MCSt comprises two adjacent time slots, an earlier slot, and a later slot after the earlier slot (Fig. 26C, the UE selects resources and sends TB1 in an initial transmission of TB1 with SCI reservation of retransmission of TB1), wherein:
the earlier slot comprises a plurality of resource block (RB) sets in a frequency domain ([0160]) ; and
the later slot comprises at least one of:
the plurality of RB sets in the frequency domain, or a subset of the plurality of RB sets in the frequency domain ([0160]).
Regarding claim 7, Li as modified by D1 above suggest the method of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more consecutive time slots for the MCSt comprises a respective SCI comprising a field indicating the second priority value (it is inherent in mode 2 resource selection that SCI transmitted with the SCI reserving resources indicates the priority level of the transmission such that other UEs can consider said priority value in determining whether to pre-empt said transmission as in said second embodiment disclosed at: [0430] disclosing “The UE may explicitly indicate that the selected resource(s) is pre-empted from the other UE's resource(s) in its SA SCI or SCI associated to its data transmission, e.g., pre-empted=1 or implicitly indicate the pre-emption in its SA SCI or SCI associated to its data transmission using a reserved priority value, e.g., priority=“111” or “000” for a 3-bit priority field in a SCI.”; Fig. 16, step 13, [0438] disclosing “[a]t step 13 for pre-emption transmission, the UE may…transmit the data over the pre-empted resources. The UE must broadcast the pre-emption indication (e.g., in a new format SCI for pre-emption announcement or with the pre-emption flag set “1” in an SA SCI or with a preserved priority value “111” or “000” in an SA SCI) with the pre-empted other UE's reserved resources or include the pre-emption in the SCI sent together with the data transmission to the receiver(s).”.
Regarding claims 8-10 and 13-14, the claims are directed towards a wireless device comprising: one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the wireless device to perform the method of claims 1-3 and 6-7. Li discloses such embodiments (Fig. 1F, [0099]-[0108], [0115]); accordingly, claims 8-10 and 13-14 are rejected on the grounds presented above for claims 1-3 and 6-7.
Regarding claims 15-17 and 20, the claims are directed towards a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a wireless device, cause the wireless device to perform the method of claims 1-3 and 6. Li discloses such embodiments ([0115]); accordingly, claims 15-17 and 20 are rejected on the grounds presented above for claims 1-3 and 6.
Claim(s) 4-5, 11-12 and 18-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al. (US 2021/0219268 A1) in view of D1, further in view of, Li et al. (US 2022/0086803 A1), hereafter Li2.
Regarding claim 4, Li discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the message further comprises one or more of:
a radio resource control (RRC) message; a system information block (SIB); a medium access control control element (MAC CE); or downlink control information (DCI) ([0166]-[0167], [0170] disclosing the message is the sidelink resource pool configuration).
Li does not expressly disclose the following; however, Li2 discloses wherein the message further indicates a threshold value ([0523] disclosing the parameter sl-PreemptionEnable is part of the resource pool configuration; [0513] disclosing “The priority threshold and/or the priority value threshold may be a numerical value indicated by sl-PreemptionEnable).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the techniques of Li with the disclosure in Li2 because the motivation is found in Li2 that use of said features can prevent half-duplex issues and in addition to using the threshold for preempting, it can also be used for resource (re-)selection procedure ([0470]).
Regarding claim 5, L discloses the method of claim 4, further comprising determining the plurality of TBs for the MCSt Fig. 26C, [0444], [0447] the UE selects resources and sends TB1 in an initial transmission of TB1 with SCI reservation of retransmission of TB1 (i.e., they each have the same priority level), wherein determining is based on one of more of:
a plurality of priority values of the plurality of TBs for the MCSt being identical Fig. 26C, [0444], [0447] the UE selects resources and sends TB1 in an initial transmission of TB1 with SCI reservation of retransmission of TB1 (i.e., they each have the same priority level); and
a difference between any two priority values of the plurality of TBs being less than or equal to the threshold value.
Regarding claims 11-12, the claims are directed towards the wireless device in the embodiment of claim 8 which performs the method of claims 4-5; accordingly, the claims are rejected on the grounds presented above for claims 4-5.
Regarding claims 18-19, the claims are directed towards the wireless device in the embodiment of claim 15 which performs the method of claims 4-5; accordingly, the claims are rejected on the grounds presented above for claims 4-5.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Joseph A Bednash whose telephone number is (571)270-7500. The examiner can normally be reached 7 AM - 4:30 PM M-F.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Huy Vu can be reached at (571)272-3155. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/JOSEPH A BEDNASH/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461