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 .
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
The following title is suggested: A priority-aware channel access procedure in an unlicensed band.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Talarico et al. (US 2025/0247858, hereinafter “Talarico”) in view of Oh et al. (US 2020/0137596, hereinafter “Oh”).
For claims 1 and 6, Talarico discloses A terminal (UE 902; see Talarico Fig. 9) comprising:
a receiving unit (receive circuitry 920; see Talarico par. 0163 and Fig. 9) configured to perform sensing (At 1302, the process 1300 may include performing a sidelink sensing; see Talarico par. 0175 and Fig. 13) in a resource pool (configured pool of resources; see Talarico par. 0025) that is set in an unlicensed band (sidelink communication on unlicensed spectrum; see Talarico par. 0018);
a control unit (the protocol processing circuitry 914 may include one or more instances of control circuitry to provide control functions for the transmit/receive components; see Talarico par. 0164 and Fig. 9) configured to select a resource based on a result of the sensing and carry out a channel access procedure for a band in which the selected resource is included (resource selection procedure to select sidelink resources for a sidelink transmission. At 1304, the process 1300 may further include performing a listen-before-talk (LBT) procedure on the selected sidelink resources; see Talarico par. 0175 and Fig. 13); and
a transmitting unit (transmit circuitry 918; see Talarico par. 0163 and Fig. 9) configured to perform a transmission to another terminal in the selected resource when the channel access procedure is carried out successfully (At 1306, the process 1300 may further include, if the LBT procedure is successful, performing the sidelink transmission in the selected sidelink resources; see Talarico par. 0175 and Fig. 13),
Talarico suggests that In this option, CAPC can be used to determine LBT-based sidelink channel access procedures, while sidelink transmission priority can be reused for sidelink sensing and resource selection procedures (see Talarico par. 0105). However, Talarico does not explicitly disclose wherein the control unit determines a priority to be applied to the channel access procedure. Oh discloses wherein the control unit determines a priority to be applied to the channel access procedure (A transmission node (hereinafter, the BS or the UE) attempting to transmit a signal through the unlicensed band may determine a channel access procedure scheme according to a type of the signal to be transmitted…. the transmission node may determine a channel access priority class based on a quality of service class identifier (QCI) of the signal to be transmitted through the unlicensed band, and may perform the channel access procedure by using at least one value from among pre-defined configuration values as in Table 1 below, based on the determined channel access priority class; see Oh par. 0093-0097). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Oh's arrangement in Talarico's invention to perform radio link state monitoring by determining whether a state of a radio link deteriorates due to a channel access process failure in a BS or a transmission node or due to deterioration in a quality of channel to the BS or the transmission node, and by excluding a case of the deterioration due to the channel access process failure in the BS or the transmission node, or by minimizing reflecting the case to radio link monitoring (see Oh par. 0055).
For claim 2, Talarico does not explicitly disclose The terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit determines the priority to be applied to the channel access procedure based on a channel, a signal, or content of the transmission. Oh discloses The terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit determines the priority to be applied to the channel access procedure based on a channel, a signal, or content of the transmission (the channel access procedure scheme may be determined according to a transmission length of the signal to be transmitted through the unlicensed band, or a length of a time or duration in which the unlicensed band is occupied and used. In general, the Type-1 scheme may require a channel access procedure to be performed longer than a channel access procedure based on the Type-2 scheme. Therefore, when to transmit a signal during short time duration or a time less than or equal to or less than a reference time (e.g., X ms or Y symbol), the Type-2 channel access procedure may be performed. However, when to transmit a signal during long time duration or a time greater than or equal to or greater than the reference time (e.g., X ms or Y symbol), the Type-I channel access procedure may be performed. In other words, channel access procedures according to different types may be performed in an available time of the unlicensed band. When performing the Type- I channel access procedure based on the aforementioned references, the transmission node may determine a channel access priority class based on a quality of service class identifier (QCI) of the signal to be transmitted through the unlicensed band, and may perform the channel access procedure by using at least one value from among pre-defined configuration values as in Table 1 below, based on the determined channel access priority class; see Oh par. 0095-0096). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Oh's arrangement in Talarico's invention to perform radio link state monitoring by determining whether a state of a radio link deteriorates due to a channel access process failure in a BS or a transmission node or due to deterioration in a quality of channel to the BS or the transmission node, and by excluding a case of the deterioration due to the channel access process failure in the BS or the transmission node, or by minimizing reflecting the case to radio link monitoring (see Oh par. 0055).
For claim 4, Talarico discloses The terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit applies, to the channel access procedure, a priority indicated in control information from a base station (At 1102, the process 1100 may include receiving a sidelink control information (SCI) that includes an indication of a channel access priority class (CAPC) for a sidelink transmission. At 1104, the process 1100 may further include determining a first PCS quality of service (QOS) identifier (PQI) for the sidelink transmission from one or more PQIs that are associated with the CAPC. At 1106, the process 1100 may further include performing the sidelink transmission based on the CAPC and the first PQI; see Talarico par. 0173).
For claim 5, Talarico does not explicitly disclose The terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit determines the priority to be applied to the channel access procedures based on a configuration or a pre-configuration. Oh discloses The terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit determines the priority to be applied to the channel access procedures based on a configuration or a pre-configuration (When performing the Type- 1 channel access procedure based on the aforementioned references, the transmission node may determine a channel access priority class based on a quality of service class identifier (QCI) of the signal to be transmitted through the unlicensed band, and may perform the channel access procedure by using at least one value from among pre-defined configuration values as in Table 1 below, based on the determined channel access priority class; see Oh par. 0096). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Oh's arrangement in Talarico's invention to perform radio link state monitoring by determining whether a state of a radio link deteriorates due to a channel access process failure in a BS or a transmission node or due to deterioration in a quality of channel to the BS or the transmission node, and by excluding a case of the deterioration due to the channel access process failure in the BS or the transmission node, or by minimizing reflecting the case to radio link monitoring (see Oh par. 0055).
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Talarico and Oh, and further in view of Myung et al. (US 2022/0086908, hereinafter “Myung”).
For claim 3, the combination of Talarico and Oh does not explicitly disclose The terminal according to claim 2, wherein the control unit applies a specific priority to the channel access procedures when the transmission does not include a shared channel. Myung discloses The terminal according to claim 2, wherein the control unit applies a specific priority to the channel access procedures when the transmission does not include a shared channel (the processor 102 may process information in the memory 104 to determine a contention window size (CWS), and perform a channel access procedure for the first channel based on the determined contention window size. When there is no transmission history of the second channel to be reflected in determining the contention window size, a minimum CWS value in a specific channel access priority class (CAPC) may be determined as the contention window size. The first channel may be a channel in which the base station does not provide explicit feedback on whether or not the first channel is successfully received, and the second channel may be a channel in which the base station provides explicit feedback on whether or not the second channel is successfully received. The second channel may be a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), and a plurality of contention window size values may be included in the channel access priority class of the second channel; see Myung par. 0274, 0342-0349). It would have been obvious to the ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date to use Myung's arrangement in Talarico's invention to provide a channel access procedure for a device in an unlicensed band (see Myung par. 0008).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
-Roy et al. (US 2020/0100296): see par. 0036 and Fig. 5;
-Yang et al. (US 2017/0238342): see par. 0045-0046 and Fig. 10;
-Park et al. (US 2025/0247882): see par. 0306 and Fig. 8.
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/CHAE S LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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