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 § 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.
Claims 1, 3, 4, 10, 12-17 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by GUO et al PG PUB 2025/0300796.
Re Claims 1, 14-17, 19, GUO et al teaches in figure 3, UE 120a (a first device includes transceiver, processor and memory, CRM) receiving a COT indication 305 from UE 102a (a second device comprising transceiver, processor and memory) [0074]; figure 4A teaches receiving a plurality of PSSCHs 401a, 401b [0088 also See figure 3, 315]; figure 3, 325b determining whether to use the COT resources wherein figure 4A teaches a PSFCH1 and 2 (a plurality of PSFCHs) in the COT resources (a first resource) within In-COT duration (a first RB set related to the COT) for transmitting HARQ feedback related to the PSSCHs 401a, 401b [0078 0089] to UE 102a (the second device) [0081].
Re Claim 3, GUO et al teaches performing a transmission of the PSFCH1 (the first PSFCH) using the COT 403.
Re Claims 4, GUO et al teaches the PSFCH1 transmission on the In-COT resource pool (the first resource) based on type 2 LBT [0068] wherein the type 2 LBT performs sensing from a time point before a starting time point of the first resource by a channel sensing interval.
Re Claims 10, 12, 13, GUO et al teaches in figure 4A, transmitting a PSFCH2 (a second PSFCH) related to the PSS CH2 using resources 403 (the COT on a second resource) within the In-COT duration (the first RB set) based on the COT indication 305 (See figure 3).
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 2, 11, 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GUO et al PG PUB 2025/0300796 in view of NOH et al PG PUB 2025/0343633.
Re Claims 2, 18 and 20, GUO et al fails to explicitly teach “the plurality of PSSCHs are received from a plurality of devices including the second device.”. However, NOH et al teaches to allow different UEs exist in the same RB set [0461] to support groupcast. One skilled in the art would have been motivated to support groupcast. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one skilled to have combined the teachings.
Re Claim 11, in view of NOH et al, the second PSFCH can be transmitted to a third UE during COT sharing.
Claims 5-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GUO et al PG PUB 2025/0300796 in view of STEFANATOS et al PG PUB 2026/0173133.
Re Claim 5, GUO et al teaches the PSFCH is transmitted in first resource, See figure 4a, based on a type 2 LBT operation but fails to explicitly teach “performing channel sensing from a time period before a starting point of the first resource by a channel sensing interval, to the starting point of the first resource.”. However, STEFANATOS et al teaches figure 3, Sensing Duration 302 (a channel sensing interval) before a start of Slot i (the first resource) of multi slots 304 [0067]. One skilled in the art would have been motivated to have included the Sensing duration 302 to maintain QoS in the sidelink transmission [0068]. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one skilled to have combined the teachings.
Re Claim 6, STEFANATOS et al teaches the sensing duration (length of the channel sensing interval) is based on the CAPC value [0067].
Re Claim 7, in view STEFANATOS et al, the slot i can be configured with the CAPC value for transmitting the PSFCH1 (a PSFCH) of GUO et al.
Re Claims 8, 9, STEFANATOS et al teaches during the sensing duration 302, measuring the energy to determine whether it is CCA [0067] or idle to transmit the PSFCH1 (the first PSFCH) during type 2 LBT operation.
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/ANDREW LEE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475
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