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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/11/2024 and 07/29/2025; the submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 6, 9, 18, 19, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-20200052823-A1 to Goto et al., from hereon Goto in view of US-20240314817-A1 to Wu et al., from hereon Wu.
Regarding claim 1 Goto teaches a first user equipment (UE) for wireless communication, comprising (P. 27, Fig. 1 teaches an UE within the radio communication system 100 includes a base station apparatus 10 (eNB) and terminal apparatuses 20a and 20b (Mobile station apparatus, User Equipment (UE))): at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the first UE to (P. 33, Fig. 3 discloses a terminal apparatus, P. 34 discloses a controller and Fig. 4 P. 37 discloses the system): receive, from a base station, first control signaling indicating a first sidelink (SL) grant having one or more associated SL resources (P. 68, Fig. 8 discloses the receiver getting information from the base station SL grant); include, in response to the CCA failing for the one or more associated SL resources, a non-acknowledgement (NACK) in a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback (P. 72); transmit, to the base station, the HARQ feedback (P.72 discloses… the receiver 22 of the terminal apparatus 20d receives the data (SL Data) transmitted in the sequence Sd8, it is assumed that abnormality has been detected. In this case, the controller 23 of the terminal apparatus 20d causes the transmitter 24 to transmit a negative acknowledgment (NACK) to the base station apparatus 10a (Sd9). In a case that the receiver 12 receives the negative acknowledgment, the controller 13 of the base station apparatus 10a causes the transmitter 14 to transmit, that is, retransmit the data stored as the retransmission data (Sd10)) but does not teach…perform clear channel assessment (CCA) for the one or more associated SL resources.
Wu teaches… perform clear channel assessment (CCA) for the one or more associated SL resources; (P.88 discloses… UE 215-a may perform a channel access procedure prior to transmitting the sidelink message (e.g., the sidelink data 210) to ensure that the one or more reserved sidelink resources of the one or more unlicensed carriers are available… the communication devices may attempt to transmit messages using the one or more sidelink resources of the one or more unlicensed carriers. Accordingly, the UE 215-a may perform the channel access procedure (an LBT procedure, a CCA procedure, or some other contention-based access procedure) to determine whether the one or more sidelink resources of the one or more unlicensed carriers are available )
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto by incorporating the teachings of Wu because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration cross-carrier sidelink resource reservation in both license and unlicensed spectrum using channel access procedure (Wu, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Regarding claim 3 Goto and Wu teach the first UE of claim 1, Goto teaches…wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to transmit, in response to a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) not being received from a second UE via the one or more SL resources before a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource is to transmit the HARQ feedback to the base station, a discontinuous transmission (DTX) in the HARQ feedback (P.38 ).
Regarding claim 6 Goto and Wu teach the first UE of claim 1, Goto teaches…wherein the first SL grant identifies one or more of the associated SL resources, a channel occupancy time (COT) sharing indicator, or a remaining channel occupancy (CO) duration (Fig. 6, P. 68-69 ).
Regarding claim 9 Goto and Wu teach the first UE of claim 1, Goto teaches…wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the UE, in response to the CCA failing for the one or more SL resources, to: receive, from the base station in response to the HARQ feedback, a second SL grant (Fig. 4, P.50 ).
Regarding claim 18 Goto and Wu teach the base station of claim 16, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the base station to: but do not teach…transmit, to the UE, a non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator; transmit, to the UE after transmitting the non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator, a trigger to request the HARQ feedback; and receive, from the UE in response to the trigger, the HARQ feedback.
Cheng teaches… transmit, to the UE, a non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator; transmit, to the UE after transmitting the non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator, a trigger to request the HARQ feedback; and receive, from the UE in response to the trigger, the HARQ feedback(Col. 5-6, Lns. 64-5).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto and Wu by incorporating the teachings of Cheng because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration and transmitting HARQ and receiving sidelink HARQ feedback via PUCCH and its reuse (Cheng, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Regarding claim 19 Goto teaches…a method performed by a user equipment (UE) (claim 5 ), the method comprising: receiving, from a base station, first control signaling indicating a first SL grant having one or more associated SL resources(P. 68, Fig. 8 discloses the receiver getting information from the base station SL grant); and including, in response to the CCA failing for the one or more SL resources, anon- acknowledgement (NACK) in a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback; and transmitting, to the base station, the HARQ feedback feedback (P.72 discloses… the receiver 22 of the terminal apparatus 20d receives the data (SL Data) transmitted in the sequence Sd8, it is assumed that abnormality has been detected. In this case, the controller 23 of the terminal apparatus 20d causes the transmitter 24 to transmit a negative acknowledgment (NACK) to the base station apparatus 10a (Sd9). In a case that the receiver 12 receives the negative acknowledgment, the controller 13 of the base station apparatus 10a causes the transmitter 14 to transmit, that is, retransmit the data stored as the retransmission data (Sd10)) but does not teach…performing a CCA for the one or more associated SL resources.
Wu teaches… performing a CCA for the one or more associated SL resources; (P.88 discloses… UE 215-a may perform a channel access procedure prior to transmitting the sidelink message (e.g., the sidelink data 210) to ensure that the one or more reserved sidelink resources of the one or more unlicensed carriers are available… the communication devices may attempt to transmit messages using the one or more sidelink resources of the one or more unlicensed carriers. Accordingly, the UE 215-a may perform the channel access procedure (an LBT procedure, a CCA procedure, or some other contention-based access procedure) to determine whether the one or more sidelink resources of the one or more unlicensed carriers are available )
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto by incorporating the teachings of Wu because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration cross-carrier sidelink resource reservation in both license and unlicensed spectrum using channel access procedure (Wu, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Regarding claim 21 Goto and Wu teach a processor for wireless communication (Abs ), comprising: at least one controller coupled with at least one memory and configured to cause the processor to (P. 30): receive, from a base station (P.30 ), first control signaling indicating a first sidelink (SL) grant having one or more associated SL resources P.31 discloses… the controller 13 causes the transmitter 14 to transmit the data to the terminal apparatus 20b. The controller 13 allocates a radio resource to each of the terminal apparatuses 20, and causes the transmitter 14 to transmit a control signal (UL Grant, DL Grant) for indicating the allocated radio resource to the terminal apparatus 20); ; include, in response to the CCA failing for the one or more SL resources, a non-acknowledgement (NACK) in a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback; transmit, to the base station, the HARQ feedback (P.72 discloses… the receiver 22 of the terminal apparatus 20d receives the data (SL Data) transmitted in the sequence Sd8, it is assumed that abnormality has been detected. In this case, the controller 23 of the terminal apparatus 20d causes the transmitter 24 to transmit a negative acknowledgment (NACK) to the base station apparatus 10a (Sd9). In a case that the receiver 12 receives the negative acknowledgment, the controller 13 of the base station apparatus 10a causes the transmitter 14 to transmit, that is, retransmit the data stored as the retransmission data (Sd10)) but does not teach…perform clear channel assessment (CCA) for the one or more associated SL resources.
Wu teaches… perform clear channel assessment (CCA) for the one or more associated SL resources(P.88 discloses… UE 215-a may perform a channel access procedure prior to transmitting the sidelink message (e.g., the sidelink data 210) to ensure that the one or more reserved sidelink resources of the one or more unlicensed carriers are available… the communication devices may attempt to transmit messages using the one or more sidelink resources of the one or more unlicensed carriers. Accordingly, the UE 215-a may perform the channel access procedure (an LBT procedure, a CCA procedure, or some other contention-based access procedure) to determine whether the one or more sidelink resources of the one or more unlicensed carriers are available )
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto by incorporating the teachings of Wu because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration cross-carrier sidelink resource reservation in both license and unlicensed spectrum using channel access procedure (Wu, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Claim(s) 2, 10, 11, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-20200052823-A1 to Goto et al., from hereon Goto and US-20240314817-A1 to Wu et al., from hereon Wu in view of US-20230269769-A1 to Ganesan et al., from hereon Ganesan-769.
Regarding claim 2 Goto and Wu teach the first UE of claim 1, but do not teach…wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to perform, in response to the one or more SL resources not being included in the first SL grant or the one or more SL resources being outside a remaining channel occupancy (CO) determination, autonomous resource selection to obtain a resource for the first SL grant.
Geneson-673 teaches… wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to perform, in response to the one or more SL resources not being included in the first SL grant or the one or more SL resources being outside a remaining channel occupancy (CO) determination, autonomous resource selection to obtain a resource for the first SL grant (P. 66).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto and Wu by incorporating the teachings of Ganesan-769 because the method and device allow for various modes of transmitting the channel occupancy time sharing indicating via sidelink communication (Ganesan-769, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Regarding claim 10 Goto and Wu teach the first UE of claim 1, but do not teach…wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE, in response to the first SL grant identifying a channel occupancy time (COT) sharing indicator and the one or more associated SL resources, to perform Cat 2 listen before talk (LBT) as the CCA.
Genesan-769 teaches… wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE, in response to the first SL grant identifying a channel occupancy time (COT) sharing indicator and the one or more associated SL resources, to perform Cat 2 listen before talk (LBT) as the CCA (P.99 ).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto and Wu by incorporating the teachings of Ganesan-769 because the method and device allow for various modes of transmitting the channel occupancy time sharing indicating via sidelink communication (Ganesan-769, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Regarding claim 11 Goto and Wu teach the first UE of claim 1, but do not teach…wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE, in response to the first SL grant not identifying the one or more associated SL resources, to perform autonomous resource selection to obtain a resource for the first SL grant within a remaining channel occupancy (CO) duration.
Ganesan-769 teaches… wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE, in response to the first SL grant not identifying the one or more associated SL resources, to perform autonomous resource selection to obtain a resource for the first SL grant within a remaining channel occupancy (CO) duration (P. 66).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto and Wu by incorporating the teachings of Ganesan-769 because the method and device allow for various modes of transmitting the channel occupancy time sharing indicating via sidelink communication (Ganesan-769, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Regarding claim 20 Goto and Wu teach the method of claim 19, but do not teach…further comprising performing, in response to the one or more SL resources not being included in the first SL grant or the one or more SL resources being outside a remaining channel occupancy (CO) determination, autonomous resource selection to obtain a resource for the first SL grant.
Geneson-769 teaches… further comprising performing, in response to the one or more SL resources not being included in the first SL grant or the one or more SL resources being outside a remaining channel occupancy (CO) determination, autonomous resource selection to obtain a resource for the first SL grant grant (P. 66).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto and Wu by incorporating the teachings of Ganesan-769 because the method and device allow for various modes of transmitting the channel occupancy time sharing indicating via sidelink communication (Ganesan-769, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Claim(s) 5 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-20200052823-A1 to Goto et al., from hereon Goto and US-20240314817-A1 to Wu et al., from hereon Wu in view of US-20190109677-A1 to wang et al., from hereon Wang.
Regarding claim 5 Goto and Wu teach the first UE of claim 1, but do not teach…wherein the HARQ feedback is included in a first physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource indicating a first status of the CCA if the CCA failed for the one or more SL resources, or in a second PUCCH resource indicating a second status of the CCA if a decoding failure of SL data occurred.
Wang teaches… wherein the HARQ feedback is included in a first physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource indicating a first status of the CCA if the CCA failed for the one or more SL resources, or in a second PUCCH resource indicating a second status of the CCA if a decoding failure of SL data occurred (P. 77).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto and Wu by incorporating the teachings of Wang because the method and device allow for various modes of feeding back HARQ-ACK information in response to grant request and mapping based on bits or autonomous configuration (Wang, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Regarding claim 23 Goto and Wu teach the processor of claim 21, but do not teach…wherein the at least one controller is further configured to cause the processor, in response to the CCA failing for the one or more SL resources, to: receive, from the base station in response to the HARQ feedback, a second SL grant.
Wang teaches… wherein the at least one controller is further configured to cause the processor, in response to the CCA failing for the one or more SL resources, to: receive, from the base station in response to the HARQ feedback, a second SL grant (P. 77).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto and Wu by incorporating the teachings of Wang because the method and device allow for various modes of feeding back HARQ-ACK information in response to grant request and mapping based on bits or autonomous configuration (Wang, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Claim(s) 14 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-20200052823-A1 to Goto et al., from hereon Goto and US-20240314817-A1 to Wu et al., from hereon Wu in view of US-12294460-B2 to Cheng et al., from hereon Cheng.
Regarding claim 14 Goto and Wu teach the first UE of claim 1, but not teach…wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to: receive, from the base station, a non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator; receive, from the base station after receiving the non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator, a trigger to request the HARQ feedback; and transmit, to the base station in response to the trigger, the SL HARQ feedback.
Cheng teaches… wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to: receive, from the base station, a non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator; receive, from the base station after receiving the non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator, a trigger to request the HARQ feedback; and transmit, to the base station in response to the trigger, the SL HARQ feedback (Col. 5-6, Lns. 64-5).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto and Wu by incorporating the teachings of Cheng because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration and transmitting HARQ and receiving sidelink HARQ feedback via PUCCH and its reuse (Cheng, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Regarding claim 18 Goto and Wu teach the base station of claim 16, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the base station to: but do not teach…transmit, to the UE, a non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator; transmit, to the UE after transmitting the non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator, a trigger to request the HARQ feedback; and receive, from the UE in response to the trigger, the HARQ feedback.
Cheng teaches… transmit, to the UE, a non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator; transmit, to the UE after transmitting the non-numerical HARQ feedback indicator, a trigger to request the HARQ feedback; and receive, from the UE in response to the trigger, the HARQ feedback(Col. 5-6, Lns. 64-5).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto and Wu by incorporating the teachings of Cheng because the method and device allow for various modes of configuration and transmitting HARQ and receiving sidelink HARQ feedback via PUCCH and its reuse (Cheng, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Claim(s) 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-20200052823-A1 to Goto et al., from hereon Goto and US-20240314817-A1 to Wu et al., from hereon Wu in view of US-12295035-B2 to Sun et al., from hereon Sun.
Regarding claim 15 Goto and Wu teach the first UE of claim 1, but do not teach…wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to: receive, from the base station as part of the first control signaling, an indication of a starting of a channel occupancy (CO) duration for transmission on the one or more associated SL resources; and perform, during a time gap indicated by the starting of the CO duration, autonomous resource selection to obtain a resource for the first SL grant.
Sun teaches… wherein the at least one processor is further configured to cause the first UE to: receive, from the base station as part of the first control signaling, an indication of a starting of a channel occupancy (CO) duration for transmission on the one or more associated SL resources; and perform, during a time gap indicated by the starting of the CO duration, autonomous resource selection to obtain a resource for the first SL grant.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Goto and Wu by incorporating the teachings of Sun because the method and device allow for various modes configuration and transmission to the UE as it detects sidelink transmission on a channel occupancy time (COT) (Sun, Abs). The motivation is that by applying a well-known standard or protocol or machine to a system provides the system with significantly improved industrial applicability.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 12, 13, and 22 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the main reason for objection of the claims under discussion is the inclusion of “further configured to cause, in response to a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) not being received from a second UE via the one or more SL resources before a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource is to transmit the SL HARQ feedback to the base station, the first UE to: transmit the NACK in the HARQ feedback; receive, from the base station, a second control signaling indicating a second SL grant; and ignore, in response to the PSFCH being received from the second UE via the one or more SL resources after the HARQ feedback is transmitted to the base station, the second SL grant”, “further configured to cause, in response to a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) not being received from a second UE via the one or more SL resources before a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource is to transmit the HARQ feedback to the base station, the first UE to: transmit the NACK in the HARQ feedback; receive, from the base station, a second control signaling indicating a second SL grant; and transmit a new transmission, in response to the PSFCH not being received from the second UE via the one or more SL resources, to the second UE via one or more SL resources associated with the second SL grant”, “further configured to cause, in response to a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) not being received from a second UE via the one or more SL resources before a first physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource is to transmit the HARQ feedback to the base station, the first UE to transmit, in a second PUCCH resource, the HARQ feedback indicating a delay in reception of the PSFCH”, and “response to a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH) not being received from a user equipment (UE) via the one or more SL resources before a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) resource is to transmit the HARQ feedback to the base station, the processor to: transmit the NACK in the HARQ feedback; receive, from the base station, a second control signaling indicating a second SL grant; and ignore, in response to the PSFCH being received from the UE via the one or more SL resources after the HARQ feedback is transmitted to the base station, the second SL grant” as the prior art of record in stand-alone form nor in combination read into the disclosed claims as supported by the specification. Furthermore, the nearest prior art such as US 11985681 B2 to Schober et al., from hereon Schober, US-12225581-B2 to Alfarham, EP-4169344-B1 to Ganesan, and US-11057162-B2 to Lee...discloses sidelink feedback channel autonomous transmission of sidelink grants in response to sidelink resources failing clear channel assessments and or the absence of reception of NACK on the granted sidelink resources.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO form PTO-892: US 11985681 B2 to Schober et al., from hereon Schober, US-12225581-B2 to Alfarham, EP-4169344-B1 to Ganesan, and US-11057162-B2 to Lee..
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/L.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2476
/AYAZ R SHEIKH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2476
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