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 .
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.
1. Claims 1-5, 12, 14, 18-20, 23-25 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park (US 2021/0250910) in view of Nam (US 2022/0110116).
2. As per claim 1, Park teaches a method for wireless communication, comprising: determining a reference subcarrier spacing (SCS) for multiple carriers in a sidelink communication (Park, ¶0255 “… the reference subcarrier spacing (µk) may be determined”. Furthermore, it’s well-known in the art to determine the appropriate reference subcarrier spacing based on channel condition or latency requirement -see Nam US 2022/0110116 for example ¶0104); and utilizing the reference SCS for each of the multiple carriers in the sidelink communication (Park, ¶0257 “… the reference subcarrier spacing value (µk) applied…”). Therefore, taking the combined teaching of Park and Nam as a whole, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to determine reference subcarrier spacing for the benefit of determining the appropriate reference subcarrier spacing based on channel condition and/or latency requirement.
3. Claim 23 is similarly analyzed as claim 1 for obviousness reason as discussed above.
4. As per claim 2, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 1, wherein each SCS for the multiple carriers are configured the same as the reference SCS (Park, ¶0257).
5. As per claim 3, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 1, wherein frequencies for the multiple carriers are configured using the reference SCS (Park, ¶0256).
6. As per claim 4, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 3, wherein the frequencies are for configuration information of candidate carrier for transmission (Tx) carrier selection/re-selection or synchronization carrier configuration information (Park, ¶0165).
7. As per claim 5, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 4, wherein a beam identifier comprises a Synchronization Signal/Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH) Block (SSB) index associated with a beam (Park, ¶0115 0119).
8. As per claim 12, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the reference SCS is based on an explicit criteria comprising using a configured/preconfigured SCS, and wherein the configured/preconfigured SCS is an information element (IE) of sl-FreqInfoList or inIE syncFrequencyList (Park, ¶0257-258 225).
9. As per claim 14, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the determining and utilizing is by a user equipment (UE), and the UE performs the sidelink communication with the multiple carriers; or, wherein the determining and utilizing is by a base station in communication with a UE (Park, ¶0237).
10. As per claim 18, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: selecting a frequency for a synchronization reference based on the reference SCS (Park, ¶0225).
11. As per claim 19, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: selecting a frequency for a Tx carrier based on the reference SCS (Park, ¶0237).
12. As per claim 20, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 1, wherein a transmission priority is based on the reference SCS (Park, ¶0172).
13. As per claim 24, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 23, further comprising: applying the reference SCS to subsequent communications (Park, ¶0257 “… the reference subcarrier spacing value (µk) applied…”).
14. Claims 25 and 27 are similarly analyzed as claim 1 for obviousness reason discussed above.
15. Claims 7-10 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park (US 2021/0250910) in view of Nam (US 2022/0110116), and further in view of Zhao (US 2023/0345550).
16. As per claim 7, Park in view of Nam teaches the method of claim 1 (see claim 1). While Park in view of Nam doesn’t explicitly mention, Zhao teaches wherein the determining of the reference SCS is based on an implicit criteria comprising at least one of a traffic information including priority level, a remaining packet delay budget (PDB), a carrier corresponding to a logical channel, a transmission congestion level including a Channel Busy Ratio (CBR) or Channel Occupancy Radio (CR), a largest SCS value, a smallest SCS value, a frequency configured most frequently, a frequency configured least frequently, a frequency list associated with traffic, a SCS of a synchronization frequency reference subcarrier spacing, or a SCS of a candidate carrier for Tx carrier selection/re-selection (Zhao, ¶0030). Therefore, taking the combined teaching of Park, Nam and Zhao as a whole, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to determine reference subcarrier spacing based one of different parameter for the benefit of determining the appropriate reference subcarrier spacing based on channel condition and/or latency requirement
17. As per claim 8, Park in view of Nam and Zhao teaches the method of claim 7, wherein the determining of the reference SCS with the CBR or the CR is based on a frequency with the CBR or the CR measurement either a lowest or a highest (Zhao, ¶0030).
18. As per claim 9, Park in view of Nam and Zhao teaches the method of claim 7, wherein the determining of the reference SCS with the logical channel is based on a frequency whose corresponding logical channel measures the CBR or the CR values either below or above a threshold (Zhao, ¶0030).
19. As per claim 10, Park in view of Nam and Zhao teaches the method of claim 7, wherein the determining of the reference SCS with the frequency carrying traffic is based on the frequency carrying traffic with a highest or a lowest priority value (Park, ¶0127).
20. The method of claim 1, wherein the reference SCS is utilized for a transmission phase for a simultaneous transmission/reception, wherein simultaneous transmission/reception channels or signals with the reference SCS are utilized for a priority comparison (Zhao, ¶0030-0033).
21. Claim1 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park (US 2021/0250910) in view of Nam (US 2022/0110116), and further in view of Zhao (US 2023/0345550), and further in view of Shin (US 2023/0276526).
22. As per claim 11, Park in view of Nam and Zhao teaches the method of claim 7 (see claim 7). While Park in view of Nam and Zhao doesn’t explicitly mention, Shin teaches wherein the determining of the reference SCS with the PDB is based on the frequency carrying traffic with a smallest or a largest remaining PDB (Shin, ¶0226 PDB). Therefore, taking the combined teaching of Park, Nam, Zhao and Shin as a whole, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to determine reference subcarrier spacing based one of different parameter for the benefit of determining the appropriate reference subcarrier spacing based on channel condition and/or latency requirement.
Conclusion
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ZEWDU A. KASSA
Examiner
Art Unit 2637
/ZEWDU A KASSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635