DETAILED ACTION
Response filed on 7/30/2026 has been entered and made of record.
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 status
Claims 1, 3-8, 10-15, 17-18, and 20 are amended.
Claims 2, 9, 16, and 19 are canceled.
Claims 1, 3-8, 10-15, 17-18, and 20 are pending for examination.
Response to arguments
Re: 35 USC § 103 rejection
Applicant’s response has been fully considered. Applicant’s arguments are moot in view of claim amendments and introduction of new prior arts not used in earlier office action.
35 USC § 103 rejection is not withdrawn.
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.
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 1, 3-8, 10-15, 17-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TSENG et al. (US 2020/0045674 A1), hereinafter “Tseng” in view of Nguyen et al. (US 12,615,556 B2), hereinafter “Nguyen”, supported by provisional application 63/077,530, filed on Sep.11, 2020, and further in view of Wu et al. (US 11,818,727 B2), hereinafter “Wu”, and Lee et al. (US 12,219,598 B2), hereinafter, “Lee”.
Claims 1, 8, 15, and 18:
Regarding claim 1, Tseng teaches, a method of wireless communication (Tseng: [Abstract]), comprising: transmitting, by a wireless communication device, to a base station, a sidelink coexistence assistance information (Fig.8B, step 885, UE sends sidelink assistance information to the network).
Tseng however does not expressly teach the coexistence part of the claim, In the same field of endeavor, Nguyen teaches coexistence of multiple radio access technologies, as disclosed by Nguyen, “To facilitate coexistence of a first radio access technology (RAT) and a second RAT, methods, apparatuses, and computer program products are provided … method of a first wireless device operating based on a RAT includes receiving a sidelink resource reservation from a second wireless device based on a second RAT” ([Abstract]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by Nguyen with that of Tseng and come up with the claimed invention motivated by handling of overlapping resources for the different RATs, as discussed by Nguyen in Fig.8, and “The example method further includes determining whether to exclude, from a candidate resource set for the first RAT within a sidelink resource pool for the first RAT, resources that overlap with the set of reserved resources for the second RAT.” (Col.2, lines 10-14).
Combination of Tseng and Nguyen however fails to expressly teach, but in the same field of endeavor, Wu teaches, wherein the sidelink coexistence assistance information indicates that the wireless communication device is configured with a first radio access technology (RAT) of sidelink traffic and a second RAT of sidelink traffic (Wu: [Abstract] “The UE may transmit a sidelink information message to the base station using the first RAT that indicates that sidelink communications are to be performed using either the second RAT or both the first RAT and the second RAT.”; Col.4, ll. 54-58, “The sidelink information message indicates a transmission type, a traffic profile, a quality of service indicator, a service type indicator, or any combination thereof, for the sidelink communications”; Col.9, ll. 16-22, “In some aspects, the sidelink information message may include additional information, such as whether the sidelink communications are for normal or high priority communications, a quality-of-service (QoS) indicator for the sidelink communications, a transmissions type indication, a service type indicator, and the like.”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by Lee with that of the combination of Tseng and Nguyen and come up with the claimed invention, motivated by determining by mobile one or both RATs for communication based on the QoS, transmission type or service type etc. as discussed above and also disclosed by Lee in Col. 22, ll. 52-56, “the sidelink information message may further include or otherwise provide an indication of a transmission type (e.g., normal TTI, URLLC, etc.), a traffic profile, a QoS indicator, a service type indicator, and the like,”.
The claim, receiving, by a wireless communication device, from the base station, a configuration message according to the sidelink coexistence assistance information, may be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art based on the disclosure by Tseng: Fig.8B, step 890, UE receives sidelink resource allocation from the network, and by combining with disclosure by Nguyen (Nguyen: Col.2, lines 7-9), so as to avoid overlap of resources.
wherein the wireless communication device is in Radio Resource Control (RRC) connected state (Fig.8B, step 880, UE transitions to RRC Connected state after RRC Connection Resume procedure before the before sending the assistance information in step 885 and receiving resource allocation in step 890.; [0109] “While the UE is active and in the RRC Connected state, the UE 810 may transmit, in action 885, a message to the serving cell 820 that may include SL Assistance Information”).
Combination of Tseng, Nguyen, and Wu fails to expressly teach, but in the same field of endeavor Lee teaches, receiving, by the wireless communication device, a configuration information that includes a channel busy rate (CBR) threshold; and transmitting, by the wireless communication device (Lee: Col. 15, ll. 22-28, “In the present specification, the ratio of the time/frequency resource in which the energy greater than or equal to the specific level is observed may be defined as a channel busy 25 ratio (CBR). The UE may measure the CBR for a channel/ frequency. Additionally, the UE may transmit the measured CBR to the network/BS.”; see Fig.16), a sensing result comprising available resource candidates in response to a measured CBR being less than the CBR threshold (Lee: Col.15, ll. 31-35, “CBR may denote the number of subchannels in which a measurement result value of a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) has a value greater than or equal to a preconfigured threshold as a result of measuring the RSSI by a UE on a subchannel basis”)
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by Lee with that of the combination of Tseng, Nguyen, and Wu and come up with the claimed invention, motivated by exclusion/avoiding or giving less priority to channels with higher busy ratio.
Claim 8 is for method complimentary to method of claim 1. Claim elements are discussed above in claim 1. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 1.
Claim 15 is for an apparatus implementing method of claim 1. Existence of processor is implied. Claim is change in category with respect to claim 1. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 1.
Claim 18 for an apparatus implementing method of claim 8. Existence of processor is implied. Claim is change in category with respect to claim 8. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 8.
Claims 3, 10, 17, and 20:
Regarding claim 3, combination of Tseng and Nguyen teaches the method of claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the sidelink coexistence assistance information comprising one or more of the following: carrier frequency, resource pool list, interference direction, victim system type, sub-band index list, and Bandwidth Part (BWP) index list (Tseng: Clm.4 “he sidelink resource allocation configuration comprises one or more sidelink resource pool configurations in at least one sidelink bandwidth part (BWP), wherein the first UE exchanges the one or more sidelink packets with the second UE autonomously based on a configured sidelink resource pool”).
Claim 10 is for method complimentary to method of claim 3. Claim elements are discussed above in claim 3. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 3.
Claim 16 is for an apparatus implementing method of claim 3. Claim is change in category with respect to claim 3. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 3.
Claim 19 for an apparatus implementing method of claim 9. Claim is change in category with respect to claim 9. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 9.
Claims 4 and 11:
Regarding claim 4, combination of Tseng and Nguyen teaches the method of claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the sidelink coexistence assistance information comprising sidelink resource pool configuration information (discussed above in claim 3).
Claim 11 is for a method complimentary to method of claim 4. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 4.
Claims 5 and 12:
Regarding claim 5, combination of Tseng and Nguyen teaches the method of claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the communication device receives, from the base station, a second configuration message; wherein the second configuration message further comprises sensing configuration information (implied by disclosure in Tseng: “[0050] A UE may also perform sensing (e.g., identifying the available sidelink resources on one or more concerned sidelink resource pools, e.g., by decoding the PSSCH) for selection/reselection of sidelink resources before any SL packet delivery”).
Claim 12 is for a method complimentary to method of claim 5. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 5.
Claims 6 and 13:
Regarding claim 6, combination of Tseng and Nguyen teaches the method of claim 5 (discussed above), wherein the second configuration message further comprises one or more of the following sensing configuration information: resource pool ID, sensing sub-channel number, sensing periodicity, sensing priority, RAT indication, and resource type indication (implied based on disclosure in [0050] as discussed above and in [0049], “UE may identify the available sidelink resources on the target sidelink resource pools by decoding the SCIs delivered on the PSCCH. The SCI may include 'intended occupied sidelink resource blocks,' 'Resource Reservation' and 'Priority of the highest MAC subPDU in the MAC PDU scheduled to be transmitted in the indicated occupied sidelink resource blocks' to indicate the locations and number of times a corresponding Tx UE may keep occupying the indicated sidelink resource blocks in the following resource pools (in the time domain)”).
Claim 13 is for a method complimentary to method of claim 6. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 6.
Claims 7 and 14:
Regarding claim 7, combination of Tseng and Nguyen teaches the method of claim 5 (discussed above), wherein the second configuration message further comprises one or more of the following sidelink configuration information: resource pool ID, sensing sub-channel number, sensing periodicity, sensing priority, and resource type indication (implied based on the discussion above in claims 5-6, and [0059] “While in the connected state, the UE 310 may provide more SL traffic-related information ( e.g., SL traffic type, SL packet size, SL packet arrival pattern, etc.) to the serving cell 320. As such, the serving cell 320 may then be able to provide updated SL resource allocation configuration to the UE 310 based on the received SL traffic information (also referred to as SL assistance information).”).
Claim 14 is for a method complimentary to method of claim 7. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 7.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/INTEKHAAB A SIDDIQUEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462
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