DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in responsive to Application 18/697342 filed on 03/29/2024. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims:
Claims 16-30 are presented for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The Information Disclosure Statements (IDS)s comply with 37 CFR 1.97 provisions. Accordingly, the Examiner has considered the IDS.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
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.
Claims 16-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ko et al. (hereinafter Ko) US 2024/0380526 A1 in view of Ye et al. (hereinafter Ye) US 2024/0196419 A1.
Regarding Claim 16, Ko teaches a method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system (Fig. 12 & ¶0178; procedure for a transmitting UE to determine partial sensing), the method comprising:
in case that a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) resource selection for a periodic transmission is triggered (¶0130-¶0131; a UE triggers PSSCH/PSCCH transmission procedure, higher layer will select resources in sidelink resource allocation. ¶0172 & ¶0196-¶0197; when periodic transmissions are enabled in a resource pool and a UE performing partial sensing performs a REV or PEC operation to determine whether to select a transmission resource to perform periodic or aperiodic transmissions, or to reselect a resource for an already selected resource), identifying candidate slots for the periodic transmission (Figs. 12-13 & ¶0172, ¶0179 & ¶0196; In step S1230 or S1310, the transmitting UE may determine, within the resource selection window, at least one candidate slot (when periodic transmissions are enable in a resource pool). For example, based on the at least one candidate slot, a sensing occasion and/or a CPS window over which partial sensing is to be performed may be determined) based on first information on a minimum number of the candidate slots (¶0318-¶0139; it is up to UE implementation to determine the subset of resources as requested by higher layers before or after the slot r″.sub.i-T.sub.3, where r″.sub.i is the slot with the smallest slot index [min number] among (r.sub.0, r.sub.1, r.sub.2, . . . ) and (r′.sub.0, r′.sub.1, r′.sub.2, . . . ), and T.sub.3 is equal to T.sub.proc,1.sup.SL, where T.sub.proc,1.sup.SL is defined in slots in Table X1, where μ.sub.SL is the SCS configuration of the SL B WP);
and performing a contiguous partial sensing (CPS) within a sensing window (Fig. 12 & ¶0180; step S1240, a transmitting UE may determine partial sensing. For example, the transmitting UE may determine a partial sensing scheme. The partial sensing scheme may include CPS).
Ko does not expressly teach which starts in a slot which is earlier than a first slot of the candidate slots by a first number of slots and ends in a slot which is earlier than the first slot of the candidate slots by a second number of slots.
Ye teaches which starts in a slot which is earlier than a first slot of the candidate slots by a first number of slots (Figs. 2-6 & ¶0055 & ¶0060; 31 slots [first number]) and ends in a slot which is earlier than the first slot of the candidate slots by a second number of slots (Figs. 2-6 & ¶0055 & ¶0060; ¶0055; In the scenario 300, it may be that the UE uses a 32-slot gap for aperiodic traffic. Accordingly, by beginning the window at a slot at slot n plus T.sub.B slots minus 31 slots 320 [second number], the contiguous partial sensing window 310 covers the entire following 32 slots that occur during the region 316. Figs. 2-6 provide examples of different sensing windows where numbers of slots is 31 slots 320 or over 32).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Ye into the system of Ko in order to for UE to efficiently perform SL communication (abstract). Utilizing such teachings enable the UE performs contiguous partial sensing without additional periodic partial sensing in the case where a packet delay budget (PDB) for the SL data is greater than a threshold. In some embodiments, the UE performs periodic partial sensing for resource re-evaluation and/or resource pre-emption according to a set of periodicity values P.sub.reserve,re-ev (and optionally period definition data K.sub.re-ev). Restrictions on the use of random resource selection by the UE are also described (abstract).
Regarding Claim 17, Ko in view of Ye teaches the method of claim 16, Ko further teaches further comprising: identifying a PSSCH resource to be excluded based on a physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH) and reference signal received power (RSRP) higher than a threshold within the sensing window (¶0087; PSCCH/PSCCH. ¶0150; UE shall exclude a candidate single-subframe resource R.sub.x,y from S.sub.B if the UE does not support transmission in the candidate single-subframe resource in the carrier under the assumption that transmissions take place in other carrier(s) using the already selected resources due to its limitation in the number of simultaneous transmission carriers, its limitation in the supported carrier combinations, or interruption for RF retuning time. The UE shall report set S.sub.B to higher layers. ¶0141-¶0143; sl-Thres-RSRP-List: this higher layer parameter provides an RSRP threshold for each combination (p.sub.i, p.sub.j), where p.sub.i is the value of the priority field in a received SCI format 1-A and p.sub.j is the priority of the transmission of the UE selecting resources; for a given invocation of this procedure, p.sub.j=prio.sub.TX. sl-RS-ForSensing selects if the UE uses the PSSCH-RSRP or PSCCH-RSRP measurement).
Regarding Claim 18, Ko in view of Ye teaches the method of claim 16, Ko further teaches wherein the first number is configured with the UE, and wherein the second number is based on a processing delay (obvious from Figs. 11-13 & ¶0131-¶0135 because the numbers are configurable. For example, to trigger this procedure, in slot n, a higher layer provides the following parameters for a PSSCH/PSCCH transmission. [0132] the resource pool from which the resources are to be reported; [0133] L1 priority, prio.sub.TX; [0134] the remaining packet delay budget; [0135] the number of sub-channels to be used for the PSSCH/PSCCH transmission in a slot, L.sub.subCH).
Regarding Claim 19, Ko in view of Ye teaches the method of claim 16, Ye teaches wherein the first number corresponds to 31 (Ye in ¶0055, ¶0071; slot is 31)
Regarding Claim 20, Ko in view of Ye teaches the method of claim 16, Ko further teaches wherein, in case that the PSSCH resource selection for the periodic transmission is triggered, a period-based partial sensing (PBPS) is performed with the CPS (Fig. 11 & ¶0174-¶0182; FIG. 11 shows sensing occasions and/or CPS window over which PBPS and/or CPS is performed).
Regarding Claim 21, Ko in view of Ye teaches the method of claim 16, Ko further teaches further comprising: in case that a PSSCH resource selection for an aperiodic transmission is triggered, identifying candidate slots for the aperiodic transmission based on second information on a minimum number of the candidate slots for the aperiodic transmission (¶0172 & Figs. 11-13; obvious because Ko I is directed to both periodic and aperiodic transmission where Ko I determines whether to select a transmission resource to perform periodic or aperiodic transmissions, or to reselect a resource for an already selected resource, whether the UE performs both PPS and CPS, or only one of PPS or CPS may be determined based on the QoS requirements such as latency (PDB)/reliability/distance linked to the transmission packet).
Regarding Claim 22, Ko in view of Ye teaches the method of claim 21, Ko further teaches further comprising: performing a CPS based on the candidate slots for the aperiodic transmission (¶0190; select a transmission resource to perform an aperiodic transmission, or to determine whether to reselect a resource for the selected resource, the UE may perform both PPS and CPS to increase the probability of reception of the initial transmission for the packet to be transmitted).
Regarding Claim 23, Ko in view of Ye teaches the method of claim 16, Ko further teaches wherein a number of the candidate slots exceeds or is equal to the minimum number of the candidate slots for the periodic transmission (obvious from Tables 8-9 because the total number of candidate single slot resources are determined for the periodic/aperiodic transmission. For example, 7) If the number of candidate single-slot resources remaining in the set S.sub.A is smaller than X .Math. M.sub.total, then Th(p.sub.i, p.sub.j) is increased by 3 dB for each priority value Th(p.sub.i, p.sub.j) and the procedure continues).
Claim 24 is substantially similar to claim 16, thus the same rationale applies.
Claims 25-30 are substantially similar to claims 17-23, thus the same rationale applies.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHRAN ABU ROUMI whose telephone number is (469)295-9170. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 6AM-5PM.
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MAHRAN ABU ROUMI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2455
/MAHRAN Y ABU ROUMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2455