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 15th August 2024 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
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, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kitagawa et al (US 2024/0397465 A1) in view of Ganesan et al (US 2023/0361955 A1).
Claim 17 (similarly Claim 1). Kitagawa shows a wireless communications device (figs. 1 and 3 – 9: User Premise Equipment linked to the LMF / core network), comprising: a transceiver (fig. 3: communication interface 370; [0061]); and a processor coupled with the transceiver (fig. 3: processor 320), wherein the wireless communications device is configured to: transmit a sidelink reference signal via a sidelink communication ([0006]: processor to transmit a sidelink reference signal to a user device; [0038]: user premise equipment may communicate other network devices or user equipment using sidelink reference signal (SLRS) without going through the network element), wherein the sidelink reference signal further being multiplexed with a plurality of sidelink reference signals from the plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices ([0038]: to combine information from both the PRS and SLRS when determining the position of the user equipment, the user premise equipment may correlate the respective PRS and the respective SLRS associated with the user equipment… an SLRS may be correlated with a PRS, e.g. the signals may be associated with a same time of location measurement, based on a first transaction ID associated with the PRS being the same as a second transaction ID associated with the SLRS); receive a beam training report based on the sidelink reference signal ([0043]: the training data for training the location inference model may include SLRS measurements, estimated positioning of the user equipment, position of the user premise equipment, the PRS, sounding reference signal, and the timing information associated with the signals received by the user equipment; [0101]: the ranging result report may include reference signal received power (RSRP), received signal strength indicator (RSSI), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), and/or beam information associated with the received SLRS; [0102]: the location management function (LMF) may be located at the core network element, and may be configured to train the location inference model… the LMF may be configured to generate an inference model based on the machine learned location inference model and the core network element may transfer only the inference model to the user equipment); and transmit data using a beam selected based on the beam training report ([0080]: the user equipment may transmit the generated ranging result report to the core network element; [0105]: the user equipment may transmit its determined position throughout the telecommunication network).Kitagawa does not expressly describe the sidelink reference signal comprises a cyclic shift and is generated based on a parameter configuration for a plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices including the wireless communications device.Ganesan teaches feature of a sidelink reference signal comprising a cyclic shift and being generated based on a parameter configuration for a plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices including the wireless communications device (fig. 5: multiple UEs; [0080]: a TX UE may configure a sidelink TCI table based on its supported configuration of a plurality of sidelink reference signals… a DMRS base sequence, a cyclic shift, a DMRS pattern, a DMRS resource, and so forth may be exchanged in PC5 RRC between a TX UE and a RX UE… a plurality of DMRS resources (e.g. each corresponding to a beam and/or panel) may be signaled).It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the cyclic shift feature as taught by Ganesan in the sidelink reference signal of Kitagawa as a straightforward way to improve spectral efficiency, extract channel estimations, estimate frequency offsets and support robust, direct device-to-device communications.Claim 20 (similarly claim 5). Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, shows the wireless communications device of claim 17, wherein the data comprises a first portion of a joint transport block ([0084]: there may be a jointly encoded cast type with a 2nd SCI format indication and cast type using reserved states in SCI 1-A), a second portion of the joint transport block being transmitted by at least one other wireless communications device from among the plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices (figs. 6 – 8; [0081] – [0084]: 1st SCI may inform the reservation of resources for RX UEs which may be helpful for RX UEs to receive a subsequent 1st SCI reception in reserved resources using signaled via an RX-spatial filter and/or RX beam… a TCI state may be signaled in 1st SCI informing an RX UE about an RX-spatial filter and/or RX beam for receiving 2nd SCI and PSSCH and may be used by neighboring UEs for a sensing procedure), and the transmitting the sidelink reference signal comprises sweeping across multiple sidelink reference signals ([0115]: the RX UE may start SL CSI-RS and/or SL RS transmission using a plurality of beams and/or panels sweeping in a differential spatial direction or simultaneous transmission using multi beam operation to establish beam with the peer UE using a default CSI-RS configuration for beam establishment or a default CSI RS configuration configured as part of beam failure).
Claim 21 (similarly claim 6). Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, shows the wireless communications device of claim 17, further configured to transmit the sidelink reference signal based on a parameter for sidelink reference signal use determined by a master wireless communications device ([0110]: the correlated positioning reference signal information may include information associated with a positioning reference signal having a first transaction ID same as a second transaction ID associated with the sidelink reference signal… the ranging result report may also include signal information related to the positioning reference signal, including at least one of a sequence ID information related to the positioning reference signal and beam index as received by the user device related to the positioning reference signal), the parameter comprising at least one of: an identification of one or more resources for use in beam training (see above; [0111]: the machine learned location inference model may be trained using a location management function, wherein the location management function may be part of the core network element); an identification of a number ports and a time/frequency allocation for the sidelink reference signal and the beam training report (see above); or an identification of a configuration for the beam training report (see above).
Claim 22 (similarly claim 7). Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, shows the wireless communications device of claim 21, wherein the wireless communications device comprises the master wireless communications device ([0111]: the machine learned location inference model may be trained using a location management function, wherein the location management function may be part of the core network element– the location management function / core network can be a “master” (e.g. main, primary) device).
---------- ---------- ----------
Claim 24 (similarly Claim 9). Kitagawa shows a wireless communications device (figs. 1 and 3 – 9: UE), comprising: a transceiver (fig. 3: communication interface 370; [0061]), and a processor coupled with the transceiver (fig. 3: processor 320), wherein the wireless communications device is configured to: receive a plurality of sidelink reference signals via a sidelink communication ([0006]: processor to transmit a sidelink reference signal to a user device; [0038]: user premise equipment may communicate other network devices or user equipment using sidelink reference signal (SLRS) without going through the network element), wherein the plurality of sidelink reference signals are multiplexed ([0038]: to combine information from both the PRS and SLRS when determining the position of the user equipment, the user premise equipment may correlate the respective PRS and the respective SLRS associated with the user equipment… an SLRS may be correlated with a PRS, e.g. the signals may be associated with a same time of location measurement, based on a first transaction ID associated with the PRS being the same as a second transaction ID associated with the SLRS), transmit a beam training report, the beam training report based on the plurality of references signals ([0043]: the training data for training the location inference model may include SLRS measurements, estimated positioning of the user equipment, position of the user premise equipment, the PRS, sounding reference signal, and the timing information associated with the signals received by the user equipment; [0101]: the ranging result report may include reference signal received power (RSRP), received signal strength indicator (RSSI), reference signal received quality (RSRQ), and/or beam information associated with the received SLRS; [0102]: the location management function (LMF) may be located at the core network element, and may be configured to train the location inference model… the LMF may be configured to generate an inference model based on the machine learned location inference model and the core network element may transfer only the inference model to the user equipment); and receive data using one or more beams selected based on the beam training report ([0080]: the user equipment may transmit the generated ranging result report to the core network element; [0105]: the user equipment may transmit its determined position throughout the telecommunication network).Kitagawa does not expressly describe the sidelink reference signal comprises a cyclic shift, and are formed based on parameter configurations for a plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices.Ganesan teaches feature of a sidelink reference signal comprising a cyclic shift and being based on a parameter configuration for a plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices (fig. 5: multiple UEs; [0080]: a TX UE may configure a sidelink TCI table based on its supported configuration of a plurality of sidelink reference signals… a DMRS base sequence, a cyclic shift, a DMRS pattern, a DMRS resource, and so forth may be exchanged in PC5 RRC between a TX UE and a RX UE… a plurality of DMRS resources (e.g. each corresponding to a beam and/or panel) may be signaled).It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the cyclic shift feature as taught by Ganesan in the sidelink reference signal of Kitagawa as a straightforward way to improve spectral efficiency, extract channel estimations, estimate frequency offsets and support robust, direct device-to-device communications.Claim 27 (similarly claim 13). Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, shows the wireless communications device of claim 24, wherein the data comprises: a first portion of a joint transport block corresponding to a first transmitter wireless communications device of the plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices ([0084]: there may be a jointly encoded cast type with a 2nd SCI format indication and cast type using reserved states in SCI 1-A); and a second portion of the joint transport block corresponding to a second transmitter wireless communications device of the plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices (figs. 6 – 8; [0081] – [0084]: 1st SCI may inform the reservation of resources for RX UEs which may be helpful for RX UEs to receive a subsequent 1st SCI reception in reserved resources using signaled via an RX-spatial filter and/or RX beam… a TCI state may be signaled in 1st SCI informing an RX UE about an RX-spatial filter and/or RX beam for receiving 2nd SCI and PSSCH and may be used by neighboring UEs for a sensing procedure); and the receiving the plurality of sidelink reference signals comprises sweeping across multiple sidelink reference signals ([0115]: the RX UE may start SL CSI-RS and/or SL RS transmission using a plurality of beams and/or panels sweeping in a differential spatial direction or simultaneous transmission using multi beam operation to establish beam with the peer UE using a default CSI-RS configuration for beam establishment or a default CSI RS configuration configured as part of beam failure).
Claim 28 (similarly claim 14). Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, shows the wireless communications device of claim 24, further configured to receive the plurality of sidelink reference signals based on a parameter for sidelink reference signal use determined by a master wireless communications device ([0110]: the correlated positioning reference signal information may include information associated with a positioning reference signal having a first transaction ID same as a second transaction ID associated with the sidelink reference signal… the ranging result report may also include signal information related to the positioning reference signal, including at least one of a sequence ID information related to the positioning reference signal and beam index as received by the user device related to the positioning reference signal), the parameter comprising at least one of: an identification of one or more resources for use in beam training (see above; [0111]: the machine learned location inference model may be trained using a location management function, wherein the location management function may be part of the core network element); an identification of a number ports and a time/frequency allocation for the sidelink reference signal and the beam training report (see above); or an identification of a configuration for the beam training report (see above).
Claim 29 (similarly claim 15). Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, shows the wireless communications device of claim 28, wherein the wireless communications device comprises the master wireless communications device ([0112]: an inference model may be based on the machine learned location inference model may be transmitted to a sub-location management function at the network element, and wherein the position of the user device may be calculated by the network element based on the inference model and the ranging result report – the user device can be a “master” (e.g. main, primary) device).
---------- ---------- ----------
Claims 2, 10, 18 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kitagawa et al in view of Ganesan et al, applied to claims 1, 9, 17 and 24, and in further view of Zhou et al (US 2024/0049253 A1).
Claim 18 (similarly claim 2). Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, shows the wireless communications device of claim 17; Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, does not expressly describe wherein the data comprises a same transport block to those transmitted by at least one other wireless communications device from among the plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices, the wireless communications device further configured to: use a same cyclic shift for the sidelink reference signal as used by the at least one other wireless communications device.Zhou teaches features/configurations of data comprising a same transport block to those transmitted by at least one other wireless communications device from among a plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices ([0291]: the duplicate is exactly the same as the previously transmitted signal/channel (or can use a different redundancy version (RV), and the rest of the parameters are the same), while blind retransmission refers to multiple transmissions of the same TB without acquiring a HARQ-ACK feedback, and different blind retransmissions can use parameters such as different modulation and coding schemes (MCS), RVs, time-frequency resource sizes), a wireless communications device further configured to use a same cyclic shift for a sidelink reference signal as used by at least one other wireless communications device ([0157]: the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the at least one PSSCH by means of mapping HARQ-ACK information to a cyclic shift of a sequence of the PSFCH transmission… such as indicating information generated after performing a logical AND operation on the HARQ-ACK information of each PSSCH of more than one PSSCH… at least one PSSCH includes more than one PSSCH corresponding to more than one transport block (TB)).It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the features/configurations as taught by Zhou in the data of Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, to reduce overhead in retransmissions and improve frequency diversity.
Claim 25 (similarly claim 10). Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, shows the wireless communications device of claim 24; Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, does not expressly describe wherein the data comprises a same transport block to those received by the wireless communications device from at least one other wireless communications device from among the plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices, and wherein at least one of the sidelink reference signals corresponds to a same cyclic shift as used by the at least one other wireless communications device.Zhou teaches features/configurations of data comprising a same transport block to those transmitted by at least one other wireless communications device from among a plurality of transmitter wireless communications devices ([0291]: the duplicate is exactly the same as the previously transmitted signal/channel (or can use a different redundancy version (RV), and the rest of the parameters are the same), while blind retransmission refers to multiple transmissions of the same TB without acquiring a HARQ-ACK feedback, and different blind retransmissions can use parameters such as different modulation and coding schemes (MCS), RVs, time-frequency resource sizes), a wireless communications device further configured to use a same cyclic shift for a sidelink reference signal as used by at least one other wireless communications device ([0157]: the HARQ-ACK information corresponding to the at least one PSSCH by means of mapping HARQ-ACK information to a cyclic shift of a sequence of the PSFCH transmission… such as indicating information generated after performing a logical AND operation on the HARQ-ACK information of each PSSCH of more than one PSSCH… at least one PSSCH includes more than one PSSCH corresponding to more than one transport block (TB)).It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the features/configurations as taught by Zhou in the data of Kitagawa, modified by Ganesan, to reduce overhead in retransmissions and improve frequency diversity.
========== ========== ==========
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 4, 8, 11, 12, 16, 19, 23, 26 and 30 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
The prior art made of record is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
1. Ganesan et al, US 2022/0330038 A1: a method of a remote unit comprising identifying a set of candidate sidelink resources; measuring signal strength using a plurality of beams at a plurality of antenna panels; excluding at least one sidelink resource from the set of candidate sidelink resources, wherein the exclusion is on a per-antenna-panel basis; and selecting a sidelink resource from the remaining candidate sidelink resources for performing sidelink communication using a beam at an antenna panel.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Xavier Szewai Wong whose telephone number is 571.270.1780. The examiner can normally be reached on 11:30 am - 8:30 pm Mon to Fri.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski can be reached on 571.270.1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/XAVIER S WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415 25th June 2026
Prosecution Insights