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 national stage application of an international application, which claims a domestic benefit to two US provisional application, filed on 31 Aug 2021 and 1 Nov 2021.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement, submitted on 28 Feb 2024, is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 33 is objected to because the Examiner believes claim 33 should depend on claim 32 just as claim 23 depends upon claim 22. Appropriate correction is required.
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 22, 23, and 32 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.
Claims 22 and 32 recite, in part, “sending to the BS an indication of the HARQ-NACK over a Uu link using an uplink resource associated with an updated estimate of directional information.” This limitation requires an uplink resource associated with an updated estimate of directional information. However, the claimed invention does not require an initial estimate of directional information, which can then be updated. Without an initial element, in is unclear how many estimates of directional information are required by the claimed invention.
Additionally, the independent claims already recite “a second direction of transmission to the Rx WTRU.” This “second direction” could be construed as an update to the independent claims’ “first direction.” Under this interpretation, “an updated estimate of directional information” may be the equivalent of the “second direction.” However, the Applicant elected not to recite “second direction” in claims 22 and 32, which leads to ambiguity as to how directions need to be determined/estimated by the claimed invention.
Claim 23 is rejected due to its dependence upon an indefinite claim.
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 15-21, 25-31, 34, and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guo (US 20190044667) in view of Rao (US 20210045093).
Regarding claims 15, 25, and 34, Guo teaches a non-transient computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, which when executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out a method performed by a transmitting (Tx) wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU), which comprises circuitry including a transmitter, receiver, a processor, and memory, performing sidelink (SL) communications with a receiving (Rx) WTRU, the method comprising:
receiving configuration information from the BS of multiple sets of direction specific periodic time-frequency (T-F) resources for SL communication with the Rx WTRU (Guo, ¶¶111-114 – UEs receives, via a SIB from the network, the parameters that define resource pools for a PSCCH [i.e. sidelink communication] in both frequency and time and consists of blocks of resource that are repeated with a period defined by SC-Period),
wherein the multiple sets of direction specific periodic resources are associated with different directional information for SL transmission (Guo, ¶179 – UE is configured with two resource pools for transmission, where each resource pool is associated with the direction of UE);
determining a first direction of transmission to the Rx WTRU, and selecting a first set of periodic T-F resources associated with the first direction of transmission to the Rx WTRU (Guo, ¶¶185, 194-196 – UE is configured with two resource pools, where the UE selects which resource pool to use based on its driving direction and whether it will use a front or rear transmit antenna);
transmitting on SL to the Rx WTRU using the first set of periodic T-F resources using the first direction of transmission to the Rx WTRU (Guo, ¶222 – transmitter UE utilizes the selected resources for transmission to send a PSCCH or PSSCH to the receiver UE);
determining, by the Tx WTRU, a second direction of transmission to the Rx WTRU (Guo, ¶197, 199 – UE updates its driving direction and transmit antenna it would use; see id. at ¶183 for resource pools based on different driving directions);
activating a second set of periodic T-F resources associated with the second direction of transmission to the Rx WTRU (Guo, ¶197 – based on the change in driving direction and/or transmit antenna it would use, UE updates the resource pool selection); and
transmitting on SL to the Rx WTRU using the second set of T-F resources. Guo, ¶222 (transmitter UE utilizes the selected, updated resources for transmission to send a PSCCH or PSSCH to the receiver UE).
Guo does not explicitly teach (1) “sending a periodic SL resource allocation request to a base station (BS)” or (2) “de-activating of the first set of periodic T-F resources.” However, Rao teaches (1) a UE sending an uplink request to a base station for sidelink radio resources. Rao, ¶70. The base station’s response may provide periodicity restrictions for the sidelink resource pools. Rao, ¶88. Rao also teaches (2) restrictions on the sidelink resource pools may also include conditions for deactivating the resource grant. Rao, ¶72. At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to enable the UE, taught by Guo, to request sidelink resources and the network to provide rules on when the resources granted in response to the request are to be deactivated, as taught by Rao, in order to mitigate interference, while still providing sidelink resources to a group of UEs. Rao, ¶¶99-100; see also id. at ¶¶88, 150 for zone-based geographic restrictions enabling frequency reuse within the network.
Regarding claims 16 and 26, the combination of Guo and Rao also teaches receiving configuration information of multiple sets of slots and sub-channels that are assigned to the Tx WTRU. Guo, ¶180 (UE configured with at least two resource pools, each occupying either different slots, subsets of slots, or PRBs).
Regarding claims 17 and 27, the combination of Guo and Rao also teaches determining that a threshold of current directional information will be exceeded. Guo, ¶182 (e.g. a first resource pool is associated with direction 0⁰ to 180⁰ and a second resource pool is associated with -180⁰ to 0⁰, thus the threshold direction that must be crossed to trigger a change in resource pools is the horizontal line in figure 12).
Regarding claims 18, 28, and 35, the combination of Guo and Rao also teaches sending to the BS an indication of the activated second set of periodic T-F resources. Guo, ¶193 (UE reports its driving direction to the network, NW, when the driving direction has changed from one range to another [i.e. which triggers a change in the selected resource pools]).
Regarding claims 19 and 29, the combination of Guo and Rao also teaches sending a transmission direction from Tx WTRU to Rx WTRU. Guo, ¶¶193-194 (UE reports both driving direction and which transmit antenna it will use to the NW); Rao, ¶88 (UE assistance information may be a request for SL resources). At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to include the directionality and antenna information, taught by Guo, within the UE assistance information, taught by Rao, in order to enable the network to map location-time and sidelink resource pools based on the UE’s position. Rao, ¶¶142, 144-145 (each geo-area associated with one or multiple resource pools).
Regarding claims 20 and 30, the combination of Guo and Rao also teaches sending directional information which associates an area to a transmitted signal using a T-F resource. Guo, ¶¶193-194 (UE reports both driving direction and which transmit antenna it will use to the NW); Rao, ¶88 (UE assistance information may be a request for SL resources); Rao, ¶145 (each geo-area is associated with one or more RPs). At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to include the directionality and antenna information, taught by Guo, within the UE assistance information, taught by Rao, in order to enable the network to map location-time and sidelink resource pools based on the UE’s position. Rao, ¶¶142, 144-145.
Regarding claims 21 and 31, the combination of Guo and Rao also teaches wherein the directional information comprises any one or more of a Tx WTRU location, Rx WTRU location, transmit beamwidth, transmission power or range of transmission to be used in a set of periodic T-F resources for SL communication. Guo, ¶¶192-193 (driving direction constitutes a direction “range” that determines which resource pool to use); see also Rao, ¶¶71, 100 (zone ID [i.e. current location] of UE being used to determine sidelink resource pool).
Claims 22, 23, 32, and 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Guo (US 20190044667) in view of Rao (US 20210045093), and further in view of Xue (US 20220287072).
Regarding claims 22 and 32, the combination of Guo and Rao teaches the method of claim 15 and the Tx WTRU of claim 25, and
receiving, in the configuration information, multiple direction specific uplink resources for transmission to the BS (Guo, ¶¶193-194 – UE configured to report driving direction and transmit antenna to the network, NW; Guo, ¶91 – eNB configures UE with resources for PUSCH and PUCCH transmissions),
wherein the multiple direction specific uplink resources are associated with different directional information for SL transmission (Guo, ¶¶193-194 – each report includes a driving direction and/or transmit antenna [i.e. different directional information] and then transmitted on uplink resources, which are then “associated” with the conveyed driving direction and/r transmit antenna).
The combination of Guo and Rao does not explicitly teach “receiving a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) negative acknowledgement (NACK) from the Rx WTRU on a SL communication; sending to the BS an indication of the HARQ-NACK over a Uu link using an uplink resource associated with an updated estimate of directional information; receiving from the BS on the Uu link, an indication of a SL resource to perform data re-transmission; and performing data re-transmission over SL to the Rx WTRU.”
However, Xue teaches the following:
receiving a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) negative acknowledgement (NACK) from the Rx WTRU on a SL communication (Xue, figure 5 (step 512) and ¶70 – transmitting UE A receives negative feedback, i.e. a NACK, from receiving UE B);
sending to the BS an indication of the HARQ-NACK over a Uu link using an uplink resource associated with an updated estimate of directional information (Xue, figure 5, step 514 and ¶¶66, 70 – Uu link between base station and UE may include feedback in the PUCCH);
receiving from the BS on the Uu link, an indication of a SL resource to perform data re-transmission (Xue, ¶70 – in response to a NACK, base station 502 may transmit a ground for T-F resources to the transmitting UE A); and
performing data re-transmission over SL to the Rx WTRU (Xue, ¶70 – transmitting UE A requested retransmission via the NACK, and with access to resources, the transmitting UE A executes the re-transmission).
At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to enable retransmission of a sidelink transmission using HARQ, as taught by Xue, using the direction-determined sidelink resource pools, taught by the combination of Guo and Rao, in order to provide error correction. Xue, ¶60.
Regarding claims 23 and 33, the combination of Guo, Rao, and Xue also teaches wherein receiving from the BS an indication to perform data re-transmission to the Rx WTRU over SL is one of a periodic resource grant or a dynamic resource grant. Xue, ¶76 (DG or CG).
Conclusion
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. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am to 3pm EST and email address is benjamin.lamont@uspto.gov (see MPEP 502.03, which allows for written authorization via the USPTO electronic filing system or mail, but not via email).
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/Benjamin Lamont/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461