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 .
This office action is responsive to the RCE and amendment filed 8/13/26.
Claims 16, 25-26, and 35 are pending.
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 16 and 25 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.
In claim 16, the limitation “with the intersection” (line 13) is indefinite since the meaning of this phrase cannot be reasonably ascertained in view of the term “with.” The examiner suggests changing this limitation to read “within the intersection” to overcome this rejection. Dependent claim 25 falls with claim 16.
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.
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) 16 and 26 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hosseini et al., US 2022/0110055, (“Hosseini”), in view of Ye et al., US 2022/0322360, (“Ye”), and Hosseini et al., US 2022/0070890, (“Qualcomm”), newly cited.
Regarding independent claim 16, Hosseini teaches the claim limitations “A method performed by a first terminal in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
receiving, from a base station, configuration information for at least one of a full sensing, a partial sensing, or a random selection in a sidelink resource allocation (paragraph no. 0031, “The term “sensing” may refer to a procedure in which a UE monitors for resource reservations by other sidelink UEs to select resources for sidelink transmissions from unreserved resources. The term “partial sensing” may refer to a procedure in which a UE performs sensing discontinuously based on configurations (e.g., by a base station or without base station signaling)”);
identifying candidate resources for a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) based on the configuration information” (paragraph no. 0031, “The term “sensing” may refer to a procedure in which a UE monitors for resource reservations by other sidelink UEs to select resources for sidelink transmissions from unreserved resources. The term “partial sensing” may refer to a procedure in which a UE performs sensing discontinuously based on configurations (e.g., by a base station or without base station signaling)”; and paragraph no. 0079, “For example, as part of a sensing mechanism for resource allocation mode 2, the UE may determine (e.g., sense) whether a selected sidelink resource has been reserved by other UE(s) before selecting the sidelink resource for a data transmission. If the UE determines that the sidelink resource has not been reserved by other UEs, the UE may use the selected sidelink resource for transmitting the data, e.g., in a PSSCH transmission”).
Hosseini does not teach but Ye teaches “receiving, from a second terminal, first coordination information on at least one preferred resource (Fig. 10, step 1002 and paragraph no. 0137);
identifying an intersection of the at least one preferred resource and at least one resource among the candidate resources (Fig. 10, step 1006 and paragraph no. 0137, “Thus, the UE may identify a set of resources within a resource selection window at 1004. Thus, the UE may perform a candidate resource selection procedure based on a resource selection window to generate a set of candidate resources. In some embodiments, a physical layer of the UE may perform the resource selection procedure, e.g., based on sensing (measurement) of resources at the UE. Then, at 1006, the UE may determine an interaction set of resources based on a comparison of the set of preferred resources to the set of candidate resources. In some embodiments, the physical layer may pass the set of candidate resources to a MAC layer of the UE and the MAC layer may determine the interaction set”; note that the interaction set of resources is an intersection set, see paragraph no. 0138);
in case that there is at least one resource within the intersection, performing the PSSCH transmission based on the at least one resource with the intersection (paragraph no. 0138, “At 1008, the UE may perform a resource selection procedure on the interaction set of resources, e.g., to determine a set of resources to use for sidelink communications. In some embodiments, if a cardinality of the interaction set of resources is equal to a number of resources to be selected, then the determined set of resources may be the interaction set of resources”; note that the sidelink communications is e.g., via a PSSCH, see paragraph no. 0125 which discloses the well known PSSCH used in SL data transmissions; note also, that the primary reference, Hosseini, discloses PSSCH transmissions in paragraph no. 0079); and
in case that there is no resource within the intersection, perform the PSSCH transmission based on at least one resource selected among the candidate resources” (paragraph no. 0138, “Alternatively, if the cardinality of the interaction set of resources is less than the number of resources to be selected, then besides the intersection set of resources, additional resources, up to the number of resources to be selected, may be randomly selected from the set of candidate resources excluding the interaction set of resources”; note that the randomly selected resource from the set of candidate resources is used for, e.g., SL communications via the PSSCH, supra) as recited in claim 16.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Hosseini by incorporating the teachings of Ye to enable inter-UE coordination of Mode 2 resource allocations as specified in the NR V2X Release 17 specification, thereby improving the resource selection at a second wireless device which takes the received set of resources into account in a resource selection for its own transmission, as suggested by Ye in paragraph no. 0123.
Hosseini does not teach but Qualcomm teaches “receiving, from a base station, … second coordination information related with a non-preferred resource” and “wherein the non-preferred resource is excluded for the sidelink resource allocation” (paragraph nos. 0088, 0097, 0098, 0099 and Fig. 5 disclose that a base station may assign sidelink resources (including non-preferred resources), via the second UE or directly, to the first UE to perform sidelink transmissions, and the first UE may select the particular sidelink resources to exclude the non-preferred resources indicated by the scheduling information forwarded by the second UE or received directly from the base station).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Hosseini and Ye by incorporating the teachings of Qualcomm to enable the base station to configure the resources for SL communication to a UE in accordance with mode 1 resource allocation scheme, as suggested by Qualcomm in paragraph nos. 0088, 0097.
Regarding independent claim 26, this independent claim is a corresponding apparatus claim of the method claim 16 and recites similar subject matter. As such, the rationale behind the above rejection of claim 16 applies with equal force to this independent claim and as further amplified below to highlight the minor differences between the claims.
Regarding further independent claim 26, see Fig. 3 (UE 350) of Hosseini for the claimed structural elements of the claim.
Claim(s) 25 and 35 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hosseini, Ye, and Qualcomm as applied to claims 16 and 26 above, and further in view of Ko et al., US 2023/0389045, (“Ko”).
Regarding claims 25 and 35, Hosseini does not teach but Ko teaches “wherein the partial sensing is performed during a sidelink discontinuous reception (DRX) inactive time” (paragraph no. 0103, first 4 lines).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Hosseini, Ye, and Qualcomm by incorporating the teachings of Ko in order to obtain a power saving gain, as suggested by Ko in paragraph no. 0103.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WON TAE C. KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-1812. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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/WON TAE C KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2414
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