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 § 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, 5, 10 and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miao (US 2025/0176016) in view of Sun (US 2024/0064713).
Regarding claim 1, Miao describes a first user equipment (UE) for wireless communications (fig. 1, first terminal 110), comprising:
at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the first UE to (fig. 8 & para. 111-112, terminal comprising memory 820, processor 810 coupled to memory for its process):
receive first control signaling indicating a set of sidelink (SL) occasions of a resource pool, each of one or more SL associations of the set of SL occasions for monitoring a sidelink channel for sidelink control information (SCI) (fig. 1 & para. 3, terminal 110 inherits (receives) a channel occupancy [Time] (COT) according to the scheduling of the network device being a base station (first control signal signaling) (para. 25), the COT represented in slots & resource blocks comprising the sidelink resource pool for indicating SCI, see fig. 3 & para. 41 in view of para. 38-39),
transmit, to a second UE, second control signaling, during at least one of the set of sidelink occasions, the second control signaling indicating an intention of the first UE to perform channel occupancy time (COT) sharing and that the first UE is offering to share with the second UE a COT acquired by the first UE, wherein the second control signaling corresponds to at least one cast type signaling (fig. 1 & para. 3, first terminal 110 shares the inherited CO/COT comprising sidelink occasions with further (second) terminal 120 (second control signaling to second UE. This is done by transmitting the sharing CO duration using sidelink channels (cast type signaling) during designated times (occasions), fig. 3-4 & para. 39-49),
transmit, to the second UE, a third control signaling indicating a starting of sharing a remaining duration of the COT (para. 47-49, as a subsequent sidelink transmission of first terminal 110, it retransmits its first sharing CO duration which is based on remaining COT).
Miao describes sharing COT (para. 3, first terminal 110 shares the network device-inherited CO/COT), but fails to further explicitly describe:
sharing to particular UE based at least in part on a destination identifier associated with the second UE.
Sun also describes sidelink COT sharing (title), further describing:
sharing to particular UE based at least in part on a destination identifier associated with the second UE (para. 71, the COT sharing for sidelink
second-stage SCI may include an 8-bit L1 destination identifier).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the sharing to particular UE in Miao be based in part on a destination identifier as in Sun.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this ensures the intended UE will receive such shared COT (Sun, abstract or para. 7).
Regarding claim 5, Miao and Sun combined describe:
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to transmit, to the second UE, each interlaced subchannel to the second UE (Miao, para. 5 or abstract, subsequent sidelink transmission comprising resource for such subsequent sidelink transmission, first terminal 110 transmits to second terminal 120 the remaining COT comprising consecutive sub-bands (subchannels), see fig. 3 & para. 42, where sub-bands 0, 2 & 4 can be interpreted as interweaved/interlaced with sub-bands 1 & 3).
Regarding claim 10, Miao and Sun combined describe:
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to define a channel occupancy (CO) duration for the COT based at least in part on at least one of a channel access priority class value (Miao para. 47, CO duration is based on first priority value of next sidelink transmission (channel access)).
Regarding claim 12, Miao and Sun combined describe:
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to receive the first control signaling from a base station (Miao, fig. 1 & para. 3, terminal 110 inherits (receives) a channel occupancy [Time] (COT) according to the scheduling of the network device being a base station (first control signal signaling) (para. 25)).
Regarding claim 13, Miao and Sun combined describe:
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to receive the first control signaling from a local storage (Miao, fig. 1 & para. 3, terminal 110 inherits (receives) a channel occupancy [Time] (COT) according to the scheduling of the network device being a base station/access node (first control signal signaling) (para. 25). The access node having the memory 820 (local storage), fig. 8 & para. 112).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miao in view of Sun as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Wang (US 2024/0357639).
Regarding claim 4, Miao and Sun combined describe that first UE transmits to the second UE a COT duration (Miao, fig. 4 step 420 & para. 49), but fails to further explicitly describe transmitting using a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE).
Wang also describes COT duration sharing in sidelink (fig. 4 & abstract), further describing:
transmitting using a medium access control (MAC) control element (CE) (para. 171, COT scheduling exchanged between UEs can be performed using following signaling: MAC CE).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the sidelink transmission of COT duration in Miao & Sun be performed using MAC CE as in Wang.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this enables different signaling alternatives including MAC CE to be used to exchange COT scheduling information in sidelink (Wang, para. 171).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miao in view of Sun as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Claret (US 2006/0120399).
Regarding claim 7, Miao and Sun combined fail to further explicitly describe:
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to transmit the third control signaling at an end of a last transport block transmission during the COT.
Claret also describes COT for multiple communication nodes to access transmission (title & para. 59 or 69), further describing:
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to transmit the third control signaling at an end of a last transport block transmission during the COT (para. 49 or 59, channel is free after transmission when End-of-Transmission (EOT) (third control) signal is received, before the full COT period is up).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that the UE in Miao and Sun combined to transmit a third control signaling at the end of the last transport block transmission as in .
The motivation for combining the teaching is that this optimizes the process of access to the channel & prevent nodes to have overly long waiting times (Claret, para. 52).
Claim(s) 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miao and Sun as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Di Girolamo (US 2026/0164459).
Regarding claim 11, Miao and Sun combined fail to further explicitly describe:
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to restrict sharing the COT based at least in part on at least one of a cast type or a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) feedback option.
Di Girolamo also describes sidelink resource allocation for COT (title & para. 104), further describing:
restrict sharing the COT based at least in part on at least one of a cast type (para. 166, shared COT are restricted to certain cast types).
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to specify that sharing the COT in Miao and Sun combined to be restricted base don a cast type as in Di Girolamo.
The motivation for combining the teachings is that this enables overall process to effectively allocate resources to users transmitting on unlicensed bands (Di Girolamo, para. 2).
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 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Miao.
Regarding claim 14, Miao describes a first user equipment (UE) for wireless communications (fig. 1, second terminal 120), comprising:
at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the first UE to (fig. 8 & para. 111-112, terminal comprising memory 820, processor 810 coupled to memory for its process):
receive, from a second UE during a sidelink (SL) occasion of a resource pool, sidelink control information (SCI) including a first control signaling indicating an intention of the second UE to perform channel occupancy time (COT) sharing and that the second first UE is offering to share with the first UE a COT acquired by the second first UE (fig. 1 & para. 3, first (second) terminal 110 shares the inherited CO/COT comprising sidelink occasions with further (first) terminal 120 (second control signaling to second UE. This is done by transmitting the sharing CO duration using sidelink channels (cast type signaling) during designated times (occasions), fig. 3-4 & para. 39-49),
receive, from the second UE, a second control signaling indicating a starting of sharing a remaining duration of the COT (para. 47-49, as a subsequent sidelink transmission of first (second) terminal 110, it retransmits to second (first) terminal its first sharing CO duration which is based on remaining COT).
Claims 21-25 are processor claims comprising limitations recited in UE claims 1, 3-6 respectively. Since Miao already recites UE comprising processor in claim 1, these claims are rejected/objected to under the same rationale.
Claims 26-27 are processor claims comprising limitations recited in UE claims 14 and 16 respectively. Since Miao already recites UE comprising processor in claim 1, these claims are rejected/objected to under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 8 and 9 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.
Regarding claim 3, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to transmit, to the second UE during an indicated SL occasion, a fourth control signaling indicating one or more of destination IDs, cast type, COT duration, or resource pool IDs associated with the COT sharing.
Regarding claim 8, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to, using time division multiplexing (TDM):
transmit, to the second UE, the second control signaling indicating that the first UE is sharing the COT with the second UE and further indicating a first channel occupancy for the second UE; and
transmit, to a third UE, a second fourth control signaling indicating that the first UE is sharing the COT with the third UE and further indicating a second channel occupancy for the third UE.
Regarding claim 9, the prior art fails to further explicitly describe:
wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to receive, from a third UE, a fourth control signaling indicating that the third UE is nominating the third UE as a candidate to be the second UE for receiving the second control signaling.
For the above claims 3, 8 and 9, the closest prior art found Kusashima (US 2024/0406983) describing COT sharing from gNB or primary UE for sidelink communication between UE1 & UE2 (fig. 12, 17 & 22 & 24), and Guo (US 2024/0389142) describing COT sharing between downlink & sidelink (title & fig. 16) with use of remaining COT (fig. 7 & 8a), in combination with Miao and/or Sun plus the control signaling of Di Girolamo (fig. 11-12), fail to render each of the above dependent claims’ additional features as a whole obvious.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Stefanatos (US 20240008085) describing COT sharing for sidelink communications in unlicensed band (title), where first UE measuring a first reference signal received power (RSRP) of a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) transmission transmitted during a channel occupancy time (COT) initiated by a second UE and accessing a first slot of the COT based on the first RSRP (abstract), Liu (US 2022/0377618) describing a UE performing, in a shared radio frequency band, a listen-before-talk (LBT) for a first COT and transmitting, during the first COT, a COT structure indicator, wherein the COT structure indicator reserves at least one resource within a second COT different than the first COT (abstract), Wang (US 2023/0417988) describing UE performing a channel access procedure to acquire one or more COTs in a sidelink channel over an unlicensed new radio (NR) band wherein the UE transmits a COT sharing information (COT-SI) configured to reserve the one or more COTs for a future transmission via the sidelink channel, Fakoorian (US 2021/0136783) describing reversed communication initiated by Rx UE (fig. 7B), Zhao (US 2023/0138096) describing cluster header (CH) obtains first & second configuration for sidelink licensed & unlicensed carrier & sends the configurations to the cluster member (CM) (fig. 11), Xu (US 2023/0171807) describing multiple starting points regarding COT for sidelink communication (title), Xue (US 2022/0256539) describing COT aware autonomous sensing for sidlelink (title & fig. 13), and Fakoorian (US 2021/0136732) describing resource configuration and reservation for SL communication by use of COT (para. 6).
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WARNER WONG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2469
/WARNER WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2469
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