DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the pending claims, 1-54, received 08 November 2022. Accordingly, the detailed action of claims 1-54 is as follows:
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
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 20 March 2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 29-33, 35-37, 39, 41, 44-45,48, 50-51, 53-54 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al (US 20230091190 A1, hereafter referred to as Liu) in view of Li et al (US 20220416953 A1, hereafter referred to as Li).
Regarding claim 29, Liu teaches a method for side link transmission on an unlicensed band (SL-U transmission) (Liu [0068] teaches communication via sidelink channels, wherein the communication is on a shared or unlicensed frequency band [0106]), performed by a first terminal device, the method comprising:
receiving transmission resources for SL-U transmission allocated by a network device to the first terminal device (Liu [Abstract, 0050, 0062, 0076 and Fig 4-405] teaches receiving downlink control information that schedules communication of a PSSCH), performing the SL-U transmission on the transmission resources to a second terminal device (Liu [Abstract, 0050, 0062, 0076 and Fig 4-410] teaches transmitting the first communication on the sidelink channel), obtaining a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) acknowledgment associated with the SL-U transmission (Liu [0082] teaches enabled feedback wherein feedback is transmitted on a PSFCH [0064] indicating acknowledgement or negative acknowledgement [0069]), configuring a resource for the HARQ acknowledgment (Liu [0093] teaches a PUCCH resource for feedback, wherein uplink resources are scheduled or allocated by the BS [0060]), and transmitting the HARQ acknowledgement to the network device on the configured resource (Liu [0082, 0093] teaches the UE transmitting the feedback to the BS on the PUCCH [0093]).
However, Liu does not explicitly teach wherein the configured resource is time compensated for Listen Before Talk (LBT) delays occurring during the SL-U transmission and/or during a transmission of the HARQ acknowledgement.
Li, in an analogous art, teaches wherein the configured resource is time compensated for Listen Before Talk (LBT) delays occurring during the SL-U transmission and/or during a transmission of the HARQ acknowledgement (Li [0038, 0451, 0491 and Abstract] teaches determining, by the network, scheduling for receiving feedback based on a LBT operation).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date to modify Liu in view of Li in order to configure the configured resource, as taught by Liu, be time compensated for Listen Before Talk (LBT) delays occurring during the SL-U transmission and/or during a transmission of the HARQ acknowledgement, as taught by Li.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to enhance the HARQ scheduling and timing procedure in order to allow an efficient way to operate in the unlicensed spectrum (Li [0006, 0007]) by taking into account errors in the feedback transmission (Li [0088]) and avoid wasted resources by retransmitting data corresponding to a HARQ-ACK (Li [0089-0090]).
Regarding claim 30, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 29, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein configuring a resource for the HARQ acknowledgement comprises: configuring a resource for the HARQ acknowledgement as one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device (Liu [0093] teaches a PUCCH resource for feedback, wherein uplink resources are scheduled or allocated by the BS [0060]).
Regarding claim 31, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 30, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein the one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device comprise one or more of:
one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device before receiving the transmission resources allocated to the first terminal device;
one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device upon receiving the transmission resources allocated to the first terminal device (Liu [0093] discloses PUCCH (“resource allocated by network device”) for feedback associated with the first communication (“transmission resources”) and corresponding feedback received from a sidelink recipient wherein the DCI indicates transmission or retransmission resources [0107]); and
one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device after receiving the transmission resources allocated to the first terminal device.
Regarding claim 32, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 31, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein the one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device after receiving the transmission resources allocated to the first terminal device are allocated by the network device in response to a request transmitted from the first terminal device to the network device (Liu [0107] teaches an additional grant scheduling a UE for retransmission responsive to the LBT report transmitted from the UE).
Regarding claim 33, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 30, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein configuring a resource for the HARQ acknowledgement comprises one or more of: finding an available resource in allocated resources for transmitting the HARQ acknowledgement, in response to finding no available resource, transmitting a request to the network device (Liu [0106] discloses LBT to perform transmission, wherein responsive to a LBT failure the UE transmits a report), and receiving one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device in response to the request (Liu [0107] teaches an additional grant scheduling a UE for retransmission responsive to the LBT report transmitted from the UE).
Regarding claim 35, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 30, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li the method teaches wherein the configured resource is one or more of, or a combination of, the following: one or more Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) resources (Liu [0093] teaches PUCCH for feedback to the BS); and one or more Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) resources (Liu [0077] teaches using PUSCH for communications to the BS).
Regarding claim 36, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 30, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein: the one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device comprise resources that are spread in the time domain (Liu [Fig 10-910,712 and 0107] teaches the DCI indicates up to two feedback retransmission resources); and/or
a set of resources are pre-configured from the network device to the first terminal device, and the one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device comprise resources that are indicated by indices of resources in the set of resources; and/or
the one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device are indicated from the network device using one of the following signaling:
Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling; Medium Access Control Control Element (MAC CE); and L1 signaling (Li [0010, 0012-0014] teaches scheduling data as a DCI scheduling a PUCCH or PUSCH triggering HARQ-ACK transmission).
Regarding claim 37, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 30, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein configuring a resource for the HARQ acknowledgement as one or more resources allocated by the network device to the first terminal device comprises: if an Uplink (UL) grant is available at the first terminal device, using a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) resource of the UL grant as the configured resource (Li [0014, 0205] teaches the DCI schedules a PUSCH to a UE triggering HARQ-ACK transmission).
Regarding claim 39, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 29, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein obtaining the HARQ acknowledgment associated with the SL-U transmission comprises: receiving the HARQ acknowledgment from the second terminal device (Liu [0082] teaches receiving feedback from the sidelink recipient including HARQ feedback [0069]); and/or generating the HARQ acknowledgment if no HARQ acknowledgement is received for a predefined period.
Regarding claim 41, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 29, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein the LBT delays comprise delays occurring due to LBT operations (Li [Abstract and 0038] discloses considering LBT operations when determining scheduling) and/or LBT failures (Liu [0107-0108]).
Regarding claim 44, Liu teaches a method for side link transmission on an unlicensed band (SL-U transmission), performed by a network device, the method comprising:
configuring and transmitting transmission resources for SL-U transmission to a first terminal device to perform the SL-U transmission (Liu [0051]), configuring one or more resources for a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) acknowledgment associated with the SL-U transmission (Liu [0093] discloses PUCCH resource for feedback), and receiving the HARQ acknowledgment from the first terminal device (Liu [0093] discloses receiving the feedback on the PUCCH).
However, Liu does not explicitly teach and transmitting the configured resources to the first terminal device, wherein the configured resource is time compensated for Listen Before Talk (LBT) delays occurring during the SL-U transmission and/or during a transmission of the HARQ acknowledgement.
Li, in an analogous art, teaches configuring one or more resources for a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) acknowledgment associated with the SL-U transmission and transmitting the configured resource to the first terminal device (Li [0008] teaches determining and transmitting scheduling data to a UE that when processed causes the UE to schedule HARQ-ACK transmission), wherein the configured resource is time compensated for Listen Before Talk (LBT) delays occurring during the SL-U transmission and/or during a transmission of the HARQ acknowledgement (Li [0038, 0451, 0491 and Abstract] teaches determining, by the network, scheduling for receiving feedback based on a LBT operation).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date to modify Liu in view of Li in order to configure the configured resource, as taught by Liu, be transmitted to the UE and be time compensated for Listen Before Talk (LBT) delays occurring during the SL-U transmission and/or during a transmission of the HARQ acknowledgement, as taught by Li.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to enhance the HARQ scheduling and timing procedure in order to allow an efficient way to operate in the unlicensed spectrum (Li [0006, 0007]) by taking into account errors in the feedback transmission (Li [0088]) and avoid wasted resources by retransmitting data corresponding to a HARQ-ACK (Li [0089-0090]).
Regarding claim 45, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 44, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein
transmitting the configured resource is performed before transmitting the transmission resources, or upon transmitting the transmission resources (Liu [0093] discloses PUCCH (“resource allocated by network device”) for feedback associated with the first communication (“transmission resources”) and corresponding feedback received from a sidelink recipient wherein the DCI indicates transmission or retransmission resources [0107]), or after transmitting the transmission resources; and/or
transmitting the configured resource comprises:
receiving a request from the first terminal device (Liu [0107] teaches an additional grant scheduling a UE for retransmission responsive to the LBT report transmitted from the UE); and allocating and transmitting one or more resources to the first terminal device (Liu [0107] teaches an additional grant scheduling a UE for retransmission responsive to the LBT report transmitted from the UE).
Regarding claim 48, it does not teach or further limit over the limitations presented above with respect to claim 35.
Therefore, claim 48 is rejected for the same reasons set forth above regarding claim 35.
Regarding claim 50, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 44, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein transmitting the configured resource to the first terminal device comprises: transmitting the configured resource using one of the following signaling:
Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling; Medium Access Control Control Element (MAC CE); and L1 signaling (Li [0010, 0012-0014] teaches scheduling data as a DCI scheduling a PUCCH or PUSCH triggering HARQ-ACK transmission).
Regarding claim 51, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 44, as rejected above.
Additionally, Liu-Li teaches the method wherein the LBT delays comprise delays occurring due to LBT operations (Li [Abstract and 0038] discloses considering LBT operations when determining scheduling) and/or LBT failures (Liu [0107-0108]).
Regarding claim 53, Liu-Li teaches a terminal device, comprising a transceiver, a processor and a memory, the memory comprising instructions executable by the processor whereby the terminal device is operative to perform a method (Liu [0061 and Fig 2-120]).
The additional limitations of claim 53, do not teach or further limit over the limitations presented above with respect to claim 29.
Specifically, the additional limitations of claim 53 are identical to the limitations of claim 29, and correspond to the device executing the limitations of claim 29. Therefore, the additional limitations of claim 53, are rejected for the same reasons set forth above regarding claim 29.
Furthermore, Liu-Li are combined according to the reasons set forth above regarding claim 29.
Regarding claim 54, Liu-Li teaches a network device, comprising a transceiver, a processor and a memory, the memory comprising instructions executable by the processor whereby the network device is operative to perform a method (Liu [0061 and Fig 2-110]).
The additional limitations of claim 54, do not teach or further limit over the limitations presented above with respect to claim 44.
Specifically, the additional limitations of claim 54 are identical to the limitations of claim 44, and correspond to the device executing the limitations of claim 44. Therefore, the additional limitations of claim 54, are rejected for the same reasons set forth above regarding claim 44.
Furthermore, Liu-Li are combined according to the reasons set forth above regarding claim 44.
Claim 40 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al (US 20230091190 A1, hereafter referred to as Liu) in view of Li et al (US 20220416953 A1, hereafter referred to as Li), as applied above regarding claim 39, further in view of Han et al (US 20240098782 A1, hereafter referred to as Han).
Regarding claim 40, Liu-Li teaches the limitations of claim 39, as rejected above.
However, Liu-Li does not explicitly teach the method wherein generating the HARQ acknowledgment comprises: generating a positive HARQ acknowledgment as the HARQ acknowledgment if no transmission resources for SL-U retransmission are required; and generating a negative HARQ acknowledgment as the HARQ acknowledgment if transmission resources for SL-U retransmission are required; and/or generating the HARQ acknowledgment if no HARQ acknowledgement is received for a predefined period comprises: starting a timer after the starting of the SL-U transmission; stopping the timer when receiving the HARQ acknowledgment from the second terminal device; and generating the HARQ acknowledgment when the timer expires.
Han, in an analogous art, teaches the method wherein generating the HARQ acknowledgment comprises: generating a positive HARQ acknowledgment as the HARQ acknowledgment if no transmission resources for SL-U retransmission are required; and generating a negative HARQ acknowledgment as the HARQ acknowledgment if transmission resources for SL-U retransmission are required (Han [0053-0054] teaches signaling an NACK to retransmit scheduling to the sidelink UE); and/or generating the HARQ acknowledgment if no HARQ acknowledgement is received for a predefined period comprises: starting a timer after the starting of the SL-U transmission; stopping the timer when receiving the HARQ acknowledgment from the second terminal device; and generating the HARQ acknowledgment when the timer expires.
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Liu-Li in view of Han in order to configure the HARQ acknowledgement generation, as taught by Liu-Li, to include generating a positive HARQ acknowledgment as the HARQ acknowledgment if no transmission resources for SL-U retransmission are required and generating a negative HARQ acknowledgment as the HARQ acknowledgment if transmission resources for SL-U retransmission are required and/or generating the HARQ acknowledgment if no HARQ acknowledgement is received for a predefined period comprises: starting a timer after the starting of the SL-U transmission; stopping the timer when receiving the HARQ acknowledgment from the second terminal device; and generating the HARQ acknowledgment when the timer expires, as taught by Han.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to introduce a mechanism for data retransmission caused by LBT failure to enable sidelink to co-exist with other wireless systems on the unlicensed band (Han [Abstract, 0027, 0080]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 42-43 allowed.
Claims 34, 38, 46-47, 49, 52 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Yang et al (US 20210135797 A1);
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SHEAN TOKUTA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2446
/SHEAN TOKUTA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2446