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 (IDS)
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 30 September 2025 is being considered by the examiner.
The Applicant elects, without traverse, the invention of Species I (claims 1-5 and 17-20) for further examination. The species II (claims 6-16) has been withdrawn.
Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 6-16 have been withdrawn.
Figure 3A of the application illustrates the claimed invention.
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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, 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (WO 2023/200547 A1) in view of SHIN et al. (US 2013/0150061 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 19 and 20, (WO 2023/200547 A1) discloses a user equipment (UE), comprising:
one or more memories;
one or more transceivers; and
one or more processors, communicatively coupled to the one or more memories and the one or more transceivers, the one or more processors, either alone or in combination, configured to:
transmit, via the one or more transceivers, to a base station, a scheduling request (SR) including a request for a sensing logical channel (SLC) for a sensing (“Radar Sensing Scheduling Request” step 415, figure 4);
receive, via the one or more transceivers, from the base station, an allocation of uplink resources [0004]: “The network entity may then provide, to the UE, a grant of resources for performing the radar sensing on specific radar sensing transmit beams”). Radar sensing by user equipment can indeed use uplink resources.;
and
transmit, via the one or more transceivers, to the base station, the SSR for ([0093]: “For example, a UE 115 may receive one or more of the signals transmitted by the network entity 105 along different directions and may report to the network entity 105 an indication of the signal that the UE 115 received with a highest signal quality or an otherwise acceptable signal quality.”).
(WO 2023/200547 A1) teaches [0004]: “The network entity may then provide, to the UE, a grant of resources for performing the radar sensing on specific radar sensing transmit beams”).
Although (WO 2023/200547 A1) does not teach the uplink resources for transmission of a status report (SSR), this feature is well known in the art and is taught in SHIN et al.
SHIN et al. (US 2013/0150061 A1), in the same field of invention, teaches this feature. ([0078]: “The base station 100 receiving the scheduling request from the device 200 allocates a UL resource of PUSCH necessary to receive a buffer status report”). See figure 3B.
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It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to allocate uplink resource for transmission of sensing status report in (WO 2023/200547 A1).
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (WO 2023/200547 A1) in view of SHIN et al. (US 2013/0150061 A1), further in view of Zhou et al. (US 2021/0022168 A1).
Regarding claim 2, (WO 2023/200547 A1) in view of SHIN et al. fails to teach where the allocation includes an SSR medium access control layer control element (MAC-CE).
Zhou et al. in the same field of invention, teaches this feature.
Zhou et al. teaches ([0009]: “([0164]: “the first MAC-CE comprises a Buffer Status Report type MAC-CE, a C-RNTI type MAC-CE, a UE Contention Resolution Identify type MAC-CE, a Timing Advance Command type MAC-CE, a DRX Command type MAC-CE, a Long DRX Command type MAC-CE, a Multiple Entry PHR type MAC-CE, a SCell Activation/Deactivation type MAC-CE, a Duplication Activation/Deactivation type MAC-CE, a SP CSI-RS/SCI-IM Resource Set Activation/Deactivation type MAC-CE, a Aperiodic CSI Trigger State Subselection type MAC-CE, a TCI states Activation/Deactivation for UE-specific PDSCH type MAC-CE, a TCI State Indication for UE-specific PDCCH type MAC-CE, a SP CSI reporting on PUCCH Activation/Deactivation type MAC-CE, a SP SRS Activation/Deactivation type MAC-CE, a PUCCH spatial relation Activation/Deactivation type MAC-CE, a SP ZP CSI-RS Resource Set Activation/Deactivation type MAC-CE, or a Recommended bit rate type MAC-CE.”
Zhou et al. discloses many sensing types of MAC-CE, such as sensing BSR (buffer statue report) MAC-CE. It is well known many types of sensing, for example, a user equipment (UE) may perform event-triggered sensing, for example, the UE may perform sensing when one or more of the following events occurs. The UE may perform sensing when the UE has data to transmit. The UE may perform sensing when the UE sends a schedule request. The UE may perform sensing when the UE receives an uplink grant. The UE may perform sensing when the UE performs a BWP switch. The UE may perform sensing when the UE changes carrier aggregation configuration. The UE may perform sensing when the UE sends a buffer status report (BSR). The UE may perform sensing when the UE receives a side link grant. The UE may perform sensing when the channel busy ratio (CBR) over a subset of subcarriers becomes larger than a threshold.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include SSR type MAC-CE, in (WO 2023/200547 A1) in view of SHIN et al.
Claims 3-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (WO 2023/200547 A1) in view of SHIN et al. (US 2013/0150061 A1), further in view of Zhou et al. (US 2021/0022168 A1), furthermore in view of WANG et al. (US 2024/0040566 A1).
Regarding claim 3, (WO 2023/200547 A1) in view of SHIN et al. further in view of Zhou et al. fails to teaches wherein the SSR MAC-CE includes one or more padding bits, wherein transmitting the SSR comprises transmitting the SSR, on the one or more padding bits.
WANG et al. in the same field of invention, teaches ([0093]: “In one example, the BSR may be an example of a padding BSR if an amount of padding bits in a BSR MAC-CE is greater than or equal to a size of the BSR MAC-CE in combination with a subheader of the BSR MAC-CE. The long BSR may be used if the quantity of the padding bits is greater than or equal to the size of the long BSR. In some such examples, if the quantity of the padding bits is greater than or equal to a size of the short BSR and less than the size of the long BSR, the short BSR may be used if the BSR indicates a buffer size for only one LCG. In other such examples, if the BSR indicates a buffer size for two or more LCGs and the quantity of padding bits is equal to the size of the short BSR, the UE may use a short truncated BSR for a LCG associated with highest priority channel. In still other examples, if the BSR indicates the buffer size of the short BSR, the UE may use a long truncated BSR for LCGs associated with the highest priority channels.
Regarding claim 4, WANG et al. further teaches wherein the SSR MAC-CE includes a range of codepoints corresponding to a desired bandwidth.
([0093]: “In one example, the BSR may be an example of a padding BSR if an amount of padding bits in a BSR MAC-CE is greater than or equal to a size of the BSR MAC-CE in combination with a subheader of the BSR MAC-CE. The long BSR may be used if the quantity of the padding bits is greater than or equal to the size of the long BSR. In some such examples, if the quantity of the padding bits is greater than or equal to a size of the short BSR and less than the size of the long BSR, the short BSR may be used if the BSR indicates a buffer size for only one LCG. In other such examples, if the BSR indicates a buffer size for two or more LCGs and the quantity of padding bits is equal to the size of the short BSR, the UE may use a short truncated BSR for a LCG associated with highest priority channel. In still other examples, if the BSR indicates the buffer size of the short BSR, the UE may use a long truncated BSR for LCGs associated with the highest priority channels.”). In other words, the padding BSR bits are codepoints and may be adjustable based the size of the long/short BSR and is based on available bandwidth.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to those having ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to configure the SSR MAC-CE includes a range of codepoints corresponding to a desired bandwidth, such as teaching in WANG et al.
Regarding claim 5, Wang et al. further teaches wherein the SSR MAC-CE includes a codepoint corresponding to one or more desired parameters for transmitting the SSR, the one or more desired parameters including:
a bandwidth; a subcarrier spacing (SCS); a periodicity; a duration, or
any combination thereof. ([0093]: “In one example, the BSR may be an example of a padding BSR if an amount of padding bits in a BSR MAC-CE is greater than or equal to a size of the BSR MAC-CE in combination with a subheader of the BSR MAC-CE. The long BSR may be used if the quantity of the padding bits is greater than or equal to the size of the long BSR. In some such examples, if the quantity of the padding bits is greater than or equal to a size of the short BSR and less than the size of the long BSR, the short BSR may be used if the BSR indicates a buffer size for only one LCG. In other such examples, if the BSR indicates a buffer size for two or more LCGs and the quantity of padding bits is equal to the size of the short BSR, the UE may use a short truncated BSR for a LCG associated with highest priority channel. In still other examples, if the BSR indicates the buffer size of the short BSR, the UE may use a long truncated BSR for LCGs associated with the highest priority channels.”). In other words, the padding BSR bits are codepoints and may be adjustable based the size of the long/short BSR and is based on available bandwidth.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (WO 2023/200547 A1) in view of SHIN et al. (US 2013/0150061 A1), further in view of Chen et al. (US 11,159,979 B2).
Regarding claim 17, (WO 2023/200547 A1) teaches ([0005]: “The method may include transmitting a scheduling request”.
(WO 2023/2005447 A1) in view of SHIN et al. fails to explicitly teach transmit, via the one or more transceivers, a plurality of SRs, wherein each of the plurality of SRs includes a request for either a data transmission or a sensing session, wherein each of the plurality of SR is transmitted at a different time.
Chen et al. in the same field of invention, teaches (“A method of a UE (User Equipment), wherein the UE is allocated with a plurality of SR (Scheduling Request) configurations by a network node, comprising: starting a timer upon sensing a first MAC (Medium Access Control) control element, wherein the first MAC control element is triggered due to data available for transmission; triggering a second MAC control element if the timer expires, wherein there are a plurality of logical channels having data available for transmission when the timer expires; triggering a SR for the second MAC control element; selecting a first SR configuration among the plurality of SR configurations, wherein the first SR configuration is associated with a highest priority logical channel among the plurality of logical channels having data available for transmission when the second MAC control element is triggered, with the highest priority logical channel determined by an identity of the highest priority logical channel, and transmitting the SR based on the first SR configuration of the plurality of SR configuration.”)
It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to configures a plurality of SRs, such as teaching in Chen et al.
Claim 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (WO 2023/200547 A1) in view of SHIN et al. (US 2013/0150061 A1), further in view of Chen et al. (US 11,159,979 B2) furthermore in view of Li et al. (US 10,708,807 B2).
Regarding claim 18, (WO 2023/200547 A1) in view of SHIN et al. further in view of Chen et al. fails to teach wherein each of the plurality of SRs comprises one bit.
Li et al. in the same field of invention, teaches (“receiving a scheduling request from at least one of the one or more UEs on the allocated resources, wherein: at least one of the received scheduling requests comprises one bit requesting resources for an uplink transmission and a plurality of bits specifying additional information regarding the uplink transmission”.
It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to configure scheduling request comprises one bit requesting for an uplink transmission, such as in Li et al.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRENDA H PHAM whose telephone number is (571)272-3135. The examiner can normally be reached 571-272-3135.
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BRENDA H. PHAM
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2412
/BRENDA H PHAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412
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