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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 8, and 17-20, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Yoshioka et al. (US Publication No. 20260032720).
As to claims 1, 18, and 20, Yoshioka teaches a method, a user equipment (UE), and one or more processors configured to, when executing instructions stored in a memory, perform operations comprising (fig. 4 and fig. 25): receiving, from radio frequency (RF) circuitry, a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) transmission via a slot i and a sub-channel j (fig. 4, S303, pp0084, pp0085, terminal 20B receives the SCI (PSCCH and/or PSSCH) and the SL data (PSSCH) transmitted from the terminal 20A, the terminal 20A may transmit the PSCCH using a frequency resource adjacent to the PSSCH frequency resource (i.e. subchannel) with the same time resource (i.e. slot) as at least a portion of the time resource of the PSSCH, and fig. 5); determining, within a resource block (RB) set k and a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) transmission occasion n, at least one interlace to use for a PSFCH transmission based at least in part on an index of the slot i, an index of the sub-channel j (fig. 4, fig. 21, pp0170, PSFCH to which the interlace structure is applied, a predetermined method may be applied in which the multiplexing number in the same time and frequency resource or in the same interlace index exceeds six (6). It is to be noted that the interlace may be an interlace per PRB, may be an interlace per multiple PRBs, or may be an interlace per multiple sub-carriers, and pp0194); and instructing the RF circuitry to transmit the PSFCH transmission via the at least one interlace in the RB set k during the PSFCH transmission occasion n, the PSFCH transmission comprising feedback for the PSSCH transmission (fig. 4, S304, pp0087, the terminal 20B transmits a HARQ-ACK for the received data to the terminal 20A using the PSFCH resource, pp0256, a control unit configured to determine a channel to which an interlace structure is applied, the channel being used for receiving, from another terminal, feedback information corresponding to the transmission signal, and fig. 21).
As to claims 2 and 19, Yoshioka teaches the operations further comprising receiving, from the RF circuitry, control signaling that configures a dedicated interlace structure for the PSFCH transmission, wherein determining the at least one interlace comprises allocating one dedicated interlace for the PSFCH transmission in accordance with the control signaling (fig. 4, fig. 5, pp0084, terminal 20B receives the SCI, fig. 21, pp0256, a control unit configured to determine a channel to which an interlace structure is applied, the channel being used for receiving, from another terminal, feedback information corresponding to the transmission signal).
As to claim 3, Yoshioka teaches the operations further comprising receiving, from the RF circuitry, control signaling that indicates a set of physical resource blocks (PRBs) to use for the PSFCH transmission in the PSFCH transmission occasion n, wherein determining the at least one interlace is based at least in part on the control signaling (fig. 4, fig. 5, fig. 21, pp0087, transmits a HARQ-ACK for the received data to the terminal 20A using the PSFCH resource specified by the received SCI, and pp0194, sl-PSFCH-RB-set and/or sl-PSFCH-Conflict-RB-set that are/is a parameter(s) indicating the PRBs that can be used for PSFCH in each PSFCH occasion may be defined as a parameter(s) for each RB set. In a case where, in a certain RB set r, the number of sub-channels or the number of interlaces used for PSCCH/PSSCH).
As to claim 4, Yoshioka teaches the operations further comprising determining a total number of physical resource blocks (PRBs) of an interlace for the PSFCH transmission that includes hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ)-acknowledgement (ACK) information for the PSSCH transmission (fig. 4, fig. 5, fig. 21, pp0087, transmits a HARQ-ACK for the received data to the terminal 20A using the PSFCH resource specified by the received SCI, and pp0194, sl-PSFCH-RB-set and/or sl-PSFCH-Conflict-RB-set that are/is a parameter(s) indicating the PRBs that can be used for PSFCH in each PSFCH occasion may be defined as a parameter(s) for each RB set. In a case where, in a certain RB set r, the number of sub-channels or the number of interlaces used for PSCCH/PSSCH).
As to claim 8, Yoshioka teaches wherein the at least one interlace comprises one or more physical resource blocks (PRBs) in a resource pool of an unlicensed radio frequency spectrum band (fig. 4, fig. 5, fig. 21, pp0261, feedback information is transmitted by using some PRBs of the plurality of PRBs and a fixed signal is transmitted by using remaining PRBs. According to the above-described configuration, the feedback channel that satisfies the regulations and that ensures the capacity can be implemented when performing the HARQ-ACK feedback of the device-to-device direct communications in an unlicensed band).
As to claim 17, Yoshioka teaches the operations further comprising determining an index of a PSFCH resource for the PSFCH transmission comprising the feedback associated with the PSSCH transmission according to PID+MIDmodRPRB, CSPSFCH (fig. 4, fig. 5, fig. 21, [Math 4], pp0189-pp0190), wherein PID is a physical layer source ID provided by a sidelink control information (SCI) format that schedules the PSSCH transmission, MID is equal to zero or a value associated with an identifier of the UE that receives the PSSCH transmission, and RPRB, CSPSFCH is a number of PSFCH resources available for multiplexing the feedback in the PSFCH transmission (fig. 4, fig. 5, fig. 21, [Math 4], pp0189-pp0190).
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) 5-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshioka et al. (US Publication No. 20260032720) in view of Horiuchi (US Publication No. 2020267638).
As to claim 5, Yoshioka teaches the limitations of the independent claim as discussed above. Yoshioka further teaches interlaces for the HARQ-ACK information (fig. 4, pp0256, determine a channel to which an interlace structure is applied, the channel being used for receiving, from another terminal, feedback information corresponding to the transmission signal). However, fails to explicitly teach the operations further comprising determining a set of interlaces that include a number of interlaces, wherein the set of interlaces are indexed in an ascending order of interlace indexes.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Horiuchi teaches the operations further comprising determining a set of interlaces that include a number of interlaces, wherein the set of interlaces are indexed in an ascending order of interlace indexes (fig. 15, pp0161, In (1) of FIG. 15, PSFCH is transmitted in interlace #0. In (2) of FIG. 15, PSFCH is transmitted in interlace #1. As in Operation Example 3-1, the interlace number in which the PSFCH is transmitted may be determined based on at least one of the slot number and the Subchannel number in which the PSSCH for which a feedback signal is transmitted by PSFCH is transmitted). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Yoshioka with the teachings of Horiuchi to achieve the goal of efficiently and reliably utilizing sidelink to enhance communication to increase communication traffic in a communication system (Horiuchi, pp0039).
As to claim 6, Yoshioka teaches the limitations of the independent claim as discussed above. Yoshioka further teaches wherein for each interlace of the set of interlaces, all PRBs in the interlace are available for PSFCH transmission (fig. 4, fig. 21, pp0194, the number of sub-channels or the number of interlaces used for PSCCH/PSSCH is denoted as X.sub.r, the number of PSCCH/PSSCH slots associated with one PSFCH occasion is denoted as Y.sub.r, and Nr PRBs can be used for PSFCH, N.sub.r/(X.sub.r×Y.sub.r) PRBs may be associated with each of the N.sub.r×Y.sub.r resources. The above-described operation may be performed for each RB set).
As to claim 7, Yoshioka teaches the limitations of the independent claim as discussed above. However, fails to explicitly teach wherein determining the at least one interlace comprises allocating the at least one interlace (i) in an ascending order of slot index and (ii) in an ascending order of sub-channel index.
In an analogous field of endeavor, Horiuchi teaches wherein determining the at least one interlace comprises allocating the at least one interlace (i) in an ascending order of slot index and (ii) in an ascending order of sub-channel index (fig. 15, pp0161, PSFCH is transmitted in interlace #0. In (2) of FIG. 15, PSFCH is transmitted in interlace #1. As in Operation Example 3-1, the interlace number in which the PSFCH is transmitted may be determined based on at least one of the slot number and the Subchannel number in which the PSSCH for which a feedback signal is transmitted by PSFCH is transmitted). Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Yoshioka with the teachings of Horiuchi to achieve the goal of efficiently and reliably utilizing sidelink to enhance communication to increase communication traffic in a communication system (Horiuchi, pp0039).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9-16 are 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OMONIYI OBAYANJU whose telephone number is (571)270-5885. The examiner can normally be reached M-Thur 10:30-7pm.
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/OMONIYI OBAYANJU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2645
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