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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of claims 1-10 in the reply filed on 01/08/2026 is acknowledged. Accordingly, claims 1-10 and 21-30 are searched and examined.
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 1-4, 6-10, 21-24 and 26-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ganesan et al. (US 2023/0361955 A1) in view of Peisa et al. (US 2020/0107235 A1).
Consider claims 1 and 21:
Ganesan discloses a first user equipment (UE) (see Fig. 4 and paragraph 0072, where Ganesan describes a wireless communication system 400 which includes a first user equipment (UE) 402 (UE-1), a second UE 404 (UE-2) and a third UE 406 (UE-3)), comprising:
a memory, a transceiver, and at least one processor coupled to the memory and the transceiver, wherein the memory stores instructions that are executable by the at least one processor, individually or in any combination, to cause the first UE (see Fig. 2 and paragraph 0041, where Ganesan describes that the first user equipment (UE) includes a transmitter 210, a receiver 212, and a processor 202 which executes instructions stored in memory 204) to:
transmit, to a second UE using a first transmit beam, a first message including sidelink control information (SCI) identifying a scheduled resource for a second message (see paragraph 0076, where Ganesan describes that the first UE (UE-1) may transmits sidelink control information (SCI) to the second UE (UE-2); see paragraph 0081, where Ganesan describes that the SCI may inform reservation of resources for the second UE to receive a subsequent signal in reserved resources; see Fig. 6 and paragraph 0087, where Ganesan describes that the SCI is transmitted over a first beam 602) and a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) (see paragraph 0052, where Ganesan describes that the first UE may transmit a SCI and a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) in a beamforming transmission);
receive, from the second UE using a first receive beam corresponding with the first transmit beam, an indication associated with the first UE, the second UE, and a third UE (see Fig. 4 and paragraph 0072, where Ganesan describes that the first UE receives a feedback 420 from the second UE; see paragraph 0089, where Ganesan describes that the feedback corresponds to a same destination group; see Fig. 4 and paragraph 0072, where Ganesan describes that the same destination group corresponds to the first user equipment (UE) 402 (UE-1), the second UE 404 (UE-2) and the third UE 406 (UE-3); see paragraphs 0122 and 0136, where Ganesan describes that the second UE reports a best available sidelink beam to the first UE as a feedback); and
perform an action in response to the indication, wherein the action includes: transmitting, to the second UE using the first transmit beam, the second message at the scheduled resource (see Fig. 4 and paragraph 0072, where Ganesan describes that the first UE 402 transmits a communication signal to the second UE 404 at step 422 after receiving the feedback at step 420).
Ganesan does not specifically disclose: receiving an indication of a collision, and perform an action in response to the indication, wherein the action includes: dropping the second message at the scheduled resource.
Peisa teaches: receiving an indication of a collision, and perform an action in response to the indication, wherein the action includes: dropping a second message at a scheduled resource (see paragraph 0545, where Peisa describes a user equipment (UE) which may be configured for sidelink communication; see paragraph 0050, where Peisa describes that when the UE understands that there was a collision, transmits no feedback message).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have: receiving an indication of a collision, and perform an action in response to the indication, wherein the action includes: dropping the second message at the scheduled resource, as taught by Peisa to modify the method of Ganesan in order to guarantee adequate service, as discussed by Peisa (see paragraph 0416).
Consider claims 2 and 22:
Ganesan in view of Peisa discloses the invention of claims 1 and 21 above. Ganesan discloses: receive, from the second UE using the first receive beam, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) negative acknowledgment (NACK) associated with the first message (see paragraph 0099, where Ganesan describes that a UE may determine to perform retransmission in a beam based on receiving a HARQ NACK feedback).
Consider claims 3 and 23:
Ganesan in view of Peisa discloses the invention of claims 1 and 21 above. Ganesan discloses: the indication is received in a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) message (see paragraph 0070, where Ganesan describes that transmission of a feedback message may be based on physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH)).
Consider claims 4 and 24:
Ganesan in view of Peisa discloses the invention of claims 1 and 21 above. Ganesan discloses: the indication is received in a media access control-control element (MAC-CE) message (see paragraph 0070, where Ganesan describes that transmission of a feedback message may be based on a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE)).
Consider claims 6 and 26:
Ganesan in view of Peisa discloses the invention of claims 1 and 21 above. Ganesan does not specifically disclose: the action is dropping the second message at the scheduled resource.
Peisa teaches: dropping a second message at a scheduled resource (see paragraph 0050, where Peisa describes that when a UE understands that there was a collision, transmits no feedback message).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have: the action is dropping the second message at the scheduled resource, as taught by Peisa to modify the method of Ganesan in order to guarantee adequate service, as discussed by Peisa (see paragraph 0416).
Consider claims 7 and 27:
Ganesan in view of Peisa discloses the invention of claims 1 and 21 above. Ganesan does not specifically disclose: the collision is a time and frequency resource collision associated with the scheduled resource for the second message.
Peisa teaches: the collision is a time and frequency resource collision associated with a scheduled resource for a second message (see paragraph 0049, where Peisa describes that in case of a collision, the colliding UEs will collide in the same time-frequency resources when transmitting their message).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have: the collision is a time and frequency resource collision associated with the scheduled resource for the second message, as taught by Peisa to modify the method of Ganesan in order to guarantee adequate service, as discussed by Peisa (see paragraph 0416).
Consider claims 8 and 28:
Ganesan in view of Peisa discloses the invention of claims 1 and 21 above. Ganesan does not specifically disclose: the collision is a receive beam collision associated with the scheduled resource for the second message.
Peisa teaches: the collision is a receive beam collision associated with a scheduled resource for a second message (see paragraph 0455, where Peisa describes that the UE receives particular beams that are available, resulting in that no collision takes place).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have: the collision is a receive beam collision associated with the scheduled resource for the second message, as taught by Peisa to modify the method of Ganesan in order to guarantee adequate service, as discussed by Peisa (see paragraph 0416).
Consider claims 9 and 29:
Ganesan in view of Peisa discloses the invention of claims 1 and 21 above. Ganesan does not specifically disclose: the collision is a transmit beam collision associated with a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback.
Peisa teaches: the collision is a transmit beam collision associated with a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback (see paragraph 0455, where Peisa describes that the UE receives particular beams that are available, resulting in that no collision takes place; see paragraph 0050, where Peisa describes that in case of a collision, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback is transmitted).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have: the collision is a transmit beam collision associated with a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback, as taught by Peisa to modify the method of Ganesan in order to guarantee adequate service, as discussed by Peisa (see paragraph 0416).
Consider claims 10 and 30:
Ganesan in view of Peisa discloses the invention of claims 1 and 21 above. Ganesan discloses: the action is transmitting, to the second UE using the first transmit beam, the second message at the scheduled resource (see Fig. 4 and paragraph 0072, where Ganesan describes that the first UE 402 transmits a communication signal to the second UE 404 at step 422 after receiving the feedback at step 420).
Claims 5 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ganesan et al. (US 2023/0361955 A1) in view of Peisa et al. (US 2020/0107235 A1), as applied to claims 1 and 21 above, and further in view of Kang et al. (US 2025/0071783 A1).
Consider claims 5 and 25:
Ganesan in view of Peisa discloses the invention of claims 1 and 21 above. Ganesan does not specifically disclose: extend a sidelink discontinuous reception (DRX) active time for a predetermined time for monitoring the indication, wherein the predetermined time ends before the scheduled resource for the second message.
Kang teaches: extend a sidelink discontinuous reception (DRX) active time for a predetermined time for monitoring an indication, wherein the predetermined time ends before the scheduled resource for a second message (see Fig. 13 and paragraph 0145, where Kang describes a user equipment which extends its Discontinuous Reception (DRX) active time 1318 in response to receiving advanced indication, the extended DRX active time has an earlier wake-up at a predetermined resource 1308 to accommodate an upcoming message).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have: extend a sidelink discontinuous reception (DRX) active time for a predetermined time for monitoring the indication, wherein the predetermined time ends before the scheduled resource for the second message, as taught by Kang to modify the method of Ganesan in order to have detailed solution on resource reporting, as discussed by Kang (see paragraph 0009).
Conclusion
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/LIHONG YU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2631