Prosecution Insights
Last updated: October 01, 2026
Application No. 18/787,172

CONTROL INFORMATION SENDING METHOD AND COMMUNICATION APPARATUS

Non-Final OA §103§Other
Filed
Jul 29, 2024
Priority
Jan 30, 2022 — CN 202210114635.9 +1 more
Examiner
TAHA, SHUKRI ABDALLAH
Art Unit
Tech Center
Assignee
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
84%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
8m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 84% — above average
84%
Career Allowance Rate
769 granted / 914 resolved
+24.1% vs TC avg
Strong +18% interview lift
Without
With
+18.2%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 11m
Avg Prosecution
13 currently pending
Career history
932
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
8.1%
-31.9% vs TC avg
§103
69.6%
+29.6% vs TC avg
§102
11.9%
-28.1% vs TC avg
§112
4.7%
-35.3% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 914 resolved cases

Office Action

§103 §Other
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 . This is a Non-final action for application number 18/787,172 in response to an original application filed on 10/11/2024. Claims 1-20 currently pending and have been considered below. Claims 1, 6, 16 and 20 are independent claims. Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statement (IDS), submitted on 10/04/2024, 04/23/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner. Priority Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed on 10/17/2024. 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 1-2, 6-12 and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cheng et al. (WO 2023/272708 A1) in view of Choi et al. (US 11,412,465 B2). Regarding claims 1 and 11, a method, applicable to a first terminal or a module or a unit used in the first terminal, wherein the method comprises: obtaining, first information, wherein the first information is for determining a resource occupied by transmission according to a first communication protocol, [Operations 1000 include, at block 1002, a UE receiving first control information (e.g., LTE SCI 702) for selection of one or more available resource pools for first SL transmission of a first RAT (e.g., NR). )) may begin with the BS transmitting a configuration for monitoring to the UE (e.g., UE 504), (Cheng et al., Paragraph 81)], determining, based on the first information, that a first resource is an available resource, [NR SL UE 504 may perform periodic NR resource pool monitoring for both LTE and NR SCI and report a list of available resource pools 850 to BS 508. For example, NR UE 504 may monitor for LTE SCI (e.g., SCI 802 from UE 502 to UE 504), and based on this, NR UE 504 may monitor BS 508 It is possible to determine a list of available resource pools that can be configured by . NR UE 504 may send a list of available resource pools to BS 508, allowing BS 508 to configure SL communication by selecting a resource pool from the list reported by NR UE 504. there is. Monitoring to determine the list of available resources and reporting of the list of available resources may occur periodically during monitoring windows, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 74)], and sending, control information on the first resource according to a second communication protocol, [At block 1104, the UE may take one or more actions for scheduling the second SL transmission of the second RAT (e.g., NR) based on monitoring of the first control information, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 83)], Cheng et al. fails to explicitly teach that the first information regarding a resource not a pool of resources, Choi et al. teaches that identifying information related to resources available to a second base station in a second communication system, (Choi et al., Paragraph 8), It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify Cheng et al. by including that the first information regarding a resource not a pool of resources, (Choi et al., Paragraph 8), in order to enabling new 5G communication (also referred to as NR communication in the disclosure) and legacy LTE communication to coexist in the same spectrum in a mobile communication system, (Choi et al., Paragraph 5). Regarding claims 2 and 12, the method further comprising: obtaining second information, wherein the second information is used to indicate the first terminal to send the control information, [At block 1006, the BS may transmit an indication of a second resource pool for the first SL transmission, and the second resource pool is selected from one or more available resource pools, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 81)]. Regarding claims 6 and 16, a method, applicable to a second terminal or a module or a unit used in the second terminal, wherein the method comprises: obtaining, first information, wherein the first information indicates a resource occupied by transmission according to a first communication protocol, [Operations 1000 include, at block 1002, a UE receiving first control information (e.g., LTE SCI 702) for selection of one or more available resource pools for first SL transmission of a first RAT (e.g., NR). )) may begin with the BS transmitting a configuration for monitoring to the UE (e.g., UE 504), (Cheng et al., Paragraph 81)], determining, based on the first information, that a first resource is an available resource, [NR SL UE 504 may perform periodic NR resource pool monitoring for both LTE and NR SCI and report a list of available resource pools 850 to BS 508. For example, NR UE 504 may monitor for LTE SCI (e.g., SCI 802 from UE 502 to UE 504), and based on this, NR UE 504 may monitor BS 508 It is possible to determine a list of available resource pools that can be configured by . NR UE 504 may send a list of available resource pools to BS 508, allowing BS 508 to configure SL communication by selecting a resource pool from the list reported by NR UE 504. there is. Monitoring to determine the list of available resources and reporting of the list of available resources may occur periodically during monitoring windows, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 74)], and the first resource is a resource for control information transmission according to a second communication protocol, [At block 1104, the UE may take one or more actions for scheduling the second SL transmission of the second RAT (e.g., NR) based on monitoring of the first control information, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 83)], determining a second resource based on the first resource, where the second resource is a resource for transmission of first data according to the second communication protocol, [At block 1006, the BS may transmit an indication of a second resource pool for the first SL transmission, and the second resource pool is selected from one or more available resource pools, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 81)], sending the first data to a first terminal on the second resource according to the second communication protocol, [at block 1002, a UE receiving first control information (e.g., LTE SCI 702) for selection of one or more available resource pools for first SL transmission of a first RAT (e.g., NR). )) may begin with the BS transmitting a configuration for monitoring to the UE (e.g., UE 504), (Cheng et al., Paragraph 81)], Cheng et al. fails to explicitly teach that the first information regarding a resource not a pool of resources, Choi et al. teaches that identifying information related to resources available to a second base station in a second communication system, (Choi et al., Paragraph 8), It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to modify Cheng et al. by including that the first information regarding a resource not a pool of resources, (Choi et al., Paragraph 8), in order to enabling new 5G communication (also referred to as NR communication in the disclosure) and legacy LTE communication to coexist in the same spectrum in a mobile communication system, (Choi et al., Paragraph 5). Regarding claims 7 and 17, the method further comprising: sending second information to the first terminal, where the second information indicates the first terminal to send control information, [At block 1104, the UE may take one or more actions for scheduling the second SL transmission of the second RAT (e.g., NR) based on monitoring of the first control information, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 83)], and the control information comprises at least one of the following: hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) information, channel state information (CSI) feedback information, or resource conflict indication information, [PUCCH carries uplink control information (UCI), such as scheduling requests, channel quality indicator (CQI), precoding matrix indicator (PMI), rank indicator (RI), and hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) ACK/NACK feedback, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 194)]. Regarding claims 8 and 18, the method wherein the second information is carried in second-level SCI, [Resource pools reserved by SCI for LTE or NR may be excluded from consideration when the NR UE 504 is reserving resources, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 72)]. Regarding claims 9 and 19, the according wherein the second resource corresponding to the first resource is a resource in a first candidate resource set, and the first candidate resource set is a candidate resource set used when the second terminal selects a resource for data transmission, [the NR UE 504 may monitor control information for LTE and select resources for NR communications based on the monitoring to avoid interference with LTE communications, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 72)]. Regarding claims 10 and 20, the method wherein the first candidate resource set determined by the second terminal meets the following conditions: the resource in the first candidate resource set is an available resource, and a resource that corresponds to the resource and that is for control information transmission is also the available resource, [NR UE 504 may monitor for LTE SCI (e.g., SCI 802 from UE 502 to UE 504), and based on this, NR UE 504 may monitor BS 508 It is possible to determine a list of available resource pools that can be configured by . NR UE 504 may send a list of available resource pools to BS 508, (Cheng et al., Paragraph 74)]. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 3-5 and 13-15 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 Shukri Taha whose telephone number is 571-270-1921. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:30am-5pm Mon-Fri. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joseph Avellino can be reached on 571-272-3905. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). /SHUKRI TAHA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2478
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Jul 29, 2024
Application Filed
Aug 13, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103, §Other (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
84%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+18.2%)
2y 11m (~8m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 914 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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