DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. In particular, this Application is the bypass application of an international application that was filed on 22 Oct 2021.
Information Disclosure Statements
The information disclosure statements, submitted on 14 Apr 2024 and 15 Oct 2025, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention I (terminal device), as defined by the Requirement for Restriction dated 29 Apr 2026, in the reply filed on 1 Jun 2026 is acknowledged.
Specification
The amendment to the Specification, received on 10 Aug 2026, overcomes the objection to the Specification provided in the Non-final Rejection.
Response to Arguments
The Reply finds Yan fails to teach a terminal device determining “a target resource and/or a target frequency point for communication according to identity (ID) information of the terminal.” Reply, 11-12. In particular, the Reply seems to imply that the first configuration information, which is used to determine the location of a first resource in Yan, does not include ID information because Yan transmits in multicast or broadcast, which does not need ID information. Reply, 11-12. In response, the Examiner notes that the English translation of Yan explicitly recites “the first configuration information includes identification information of a receiving device.” Yan, ¶74 (emphasis added). The first configuration information is then used in Yan to determine “a location of a first resource” (i.e. the claimed “target resource”). Yan, ¶73. As a result, the Examiner maintains that Yan anticipates the claimed invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Yan (WO 2023029339) (citations based on attached English translation).
Regarding claims 1 and 10, Yan teaches a wireless communication method and a terminal device, comprising a memory for storing instructions and a processor configured to execute the method, comprising:
determining, by a terminal device (Yan, ¶77 – receiving device is terminal device), a target resource and/or a target frequency point for communication, according to identity (ID) information of the terminal device and/or a user type of the terminal device (Yan, ¶¶73-74 – receiving device determines a “location of a first resource” [i.e. target resource] according to the first configuration information; Yan, ¶74 – first configuration information includes identification information of the receiving device), and
the terminal device obtains energy for communication through power harvesting (Yan, ¶105 – terminal device includes a tag circuit that stores energy collected via the energy harvesting link); and
transmitting, by the terminal device, data based on the target resource and/or target frequency point. Yan, ¶78 (receiving device transmits a first signal via the first resource).
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.
Claims 2-6 and 11-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yan (of record) in view of Shah (US 20210068135).
Regarding claims 2 and 11-12, Yan teaches the method of claim 1 and terminal device of claim 10, wherein determining, by the terminal device, the target resource and/or the target frequency point for communication, according to ID information of the terminal device comprises: determining a user group to which the terminal device belongs, according to ID information of the terminal device (Yan, figure 5 and ¶108 – UE determines if it is a first terminal device or a second terminal device based on the type of mobile terminal that it is [i.e. is it a backscatter communication device or not]; Yan, ¶112 – first configuration includes identification of receiving device [i.e. terminal device]).
Yan does not explicitly teach “determining the target resource and/or the target frequency point, according to the user group to which the terminal device belongs, wherein the ID information of the terminal device comprises a plurality of bits, and determining the user group, to which the terminal device belongs, according to ID information of the terminal device comprises: determining the user group, to which the terminal device belongs, according to values of part or all of the plurality of bits.” However, Shah teaches the following:
determining a user group to which the terminal device belongs, according to ID information of the terminal device (Shah, ¶104-109 – gNB provides a DCI [i.e. first information] with a user group ID, which defines the group to which a UE belongs as shown in the table of paragraph 108);
determining the target resource and/or the target frequency point, according to the user group to which the terminal device belongs (Shah, ¶109 – UEs within each group are associated with different uplink radio resource sets [see table in ¶108]),
wherein the ID information of the terminal device comprises a plurality of bits (Shah, ¶110 – UE group ID may be 2 bits), and
determining the user group, to which the terminal device belongs, according to ID information of the terminal device comprises: determining the user group, to which the terminal device belongs, according to values of part or all of the plurality of bits. Shah, ¶108 (the table indicates which resources a particular UE associated with a UE group ID will use); Shah, ¶¶104, 106, 118 (UE receives its UE group from the gNB based on communication type [e.g. eMBB, URLLC, or MMTC]).
At the time of the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to group terminal devices, as taught by Yan, when allocating uplink resources, as taught by Shah, in order to distribute the terminal devices across different, non-interfering radio resources. Shah, ¶104; Shah, ¶111 (no collisions between uplink transmissions for specific UE groups).
Regarding claims 3 and 13-14, the combination of Yan and Shah also teaches wherein determining the target resource and/or the target frequency point, according to the user group to which the terminal device belongs comprises:
determining the target resource according to the user group, to which the terminal device belongs, in combination with a mapping relationship between the user group and a resource group (Shah, ¶¶108-109 – as shown in the table, gNB provides an association between the UEs in one group and different uplink radio resource sets 0-3; Shah, ¶113 – one-to-one relationship between uplink radio resource sets and UE group IDs),
wherein the resource group comprises at least one resource, and terminal devices in the user group are able to use resources in a corresponding resource group (Shah, ¶104 – uplink radio resource sets may be FDM, CDM, or TDM resources; Shah, ¶112 – UEs in a group use the resources assigned to the group),
wherein determining the target resource according to the user group, to which the terminal device belongs, in combination with the mapping relationship between the user group and the resource group comprises:
determining a target resource group according to the user group to which the terminal device belongs and the mapping relationship (Shah, ¶108 – based on the UE group ID to which a UE is assigned, the UE determines its uplink resource set based on an “association” provided by the table); and
determining the target resource from the target resource group. Shah, ¶114 (e.g. UE1 determines it is in UE group ID 00, therefore uses uplink radio resource set 0).
Regarding claims 4 and 15, the combination of Yan and Shah also teaches if the target resource group comprises one resource, determining the one resource as the target resource (Shah, ¶108 – one uplink resource set for each UE associated with a UE group ID); or
if the target resource group comprises a plurality of resources, determining the target resource from the plurality of resources, wherein determining the target resource from the plurality of resources comprises: randomly selecting at least one resource from the plurality of resources, as the target resource; or determining the target resource from the plurality of resources according to a preset rule; or determining the target resource from the plurality of resources according to an anti-collision processing algorithm.1
Regarding claims 5 and 16, the combination of Yan and Shah also teaches wherein the mapping relationship between the user group and the resource group comprises a second mapping relationship between the user group and a time domain resource group (Shah, ¶108 – multiple associations [i.e. including a “second” association] between UE group IDs and uplink radio resource sets), and wherein the time domain resource group comprises at least one time domain resource, and the target resource comprises at least one target time domain resource. Shah, ¶¶104, 152 (uplink radio resource sets may be time-division-multiplexed, resulting an uplink resource being a “symbol as a time unit” or a “slot” or a “sub-frame”).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN S LAMONT whose telephone number is (571)270-7514 and email address is benjamin.lamont@uspto.gov (see MPEP 502.03 for using EFS or mail, but not email to authorize electronic communications). The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am to 3pm EST.
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/Benjamin Lamont/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461
1 This optional limitation is mutually exclusive of the limitation above it. As a result, the prior art need only teach one of the two limitations to render the claimed invention unpatentable.
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