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 amendment filed 12/16/25 and the supplement amendment filed 12/23/25.
Claims 16, 21, 25-26, 31, and 35 are pending.
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”), newly cited, in view of Ye et al., US 2022/0322360, (“Ye”), 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 by using 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 by using 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.
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 and Ye as applied to claims 16 and 26 above, and further in view of Ko et al., US 2023/0389045, (“Ko”), newly cited.
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 and Ye by incorporating the teachings of Ko in order to obtain a power saving gain, as suggested by Ko in paragraph no. 0103.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 21 and 31 are 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.
Regarding claims 21 and 31, the prior art of record does not teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations “receiving, from the base station, second coordination information indicating a non- preferred resource, wherein the non-preferred resource is excluded for the sidelink resource allocation.”
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 16 and 26 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.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/WON TAE C KIM/Examiner, Art Unit 2414