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.
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) 1-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Di Girolamo et al. (US 2025/0038807) in view of Hui et al. (US 2025/0024494).
Regarding claims 1 and 10, Di Girolamo et al. disclose a method performed by a first user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system (Paragraphs 77, 179, 194, 251, WTRU; Figure 8F, WTRU 102), the method comprising and the first UE comprising:
at least one transceiver (Figure 8F, transceiver 120); and
at least one processor connected to the at least one transceiver (Figure 8F, processor 118 connected to transceiver 120),
wherein the at least one processor is configured to:
receiving, from a base station, configuration information related to a plurality of sidelink (SL) resource pools (Paragraph 77, For SL, transmission resources may be allocated to the WTRU by the gNB; Paragraph 179, a WTRU may be configured with multiple TX resource pools. These resource pools may be in one SL BWP or over multiple SL BWPs. Some of the TX resource pools may be configured as “active”, and may be used for sidelink transmissions, while others may be configured as “inactive” and are not used for sidelink transmissions. The WTRU may be configured to monitor LBT events for each of these TX resource pools); and
based on a SL consistent SL LBT (listen before talk (LBT) failure for RB sets of a first SL resource pool among the plurality of SL resource pools being detected (Paragraph 194, Per resource pool: The WTRU may determine consistent LBT failure for a specific resource pool or group of resource pools. For example, a WTRU may determine consistent LBT failure for multiple TX resource pools. These resource pools may be in one SL BWP or over multiple SL BWPs. Some of the TX resource pools may be configured as “active”, and may be used for sidelink transmissions, while others may be configured as “inactive” and are not used for sidelink transmissions. The WTRU may be configured to determine consistent LBT failure for each of these TX resource pools; Paragraph 251, a consistent LBT failure is determined on a “active” TX resource pool), selecting a second SL resource pool among the plurality of resource pools (Paragraph 251, the WTRU may autonomously change to an alternate TX resource pool that is being monitored, one for which no consistent LBT failure has been determined. The alternate TX resource pool may be “active” TX resource pool or an “inactive” TX resource pool).
Di Girolamo et al. do not disclose the following limitations that are disclosed by Hui et al.: wherein a selected SL grant corresponding to the first SL resource pool is removed (Hui et al., Paragraph 479, Implementing embodiments of the present disclosure may increase flexibility for the transmitting wireless device to determine whether to select a new resource pool or to select a new set of resources based on a number of LBT failures in a time period on the unlicensed/shared spectrum/cell/carrier/band; Paragraph 489, the first wireless device (e.g., the higher layer of the first wireless device) may select, based on the LBT failure of the first resource (e.g., or the indication of the LBT failure) and for the one or more sidelink transmissions, a second resource other than the first resource. In an example, the first wireless device (e.g., the higher layer of the first wireless device) may remove the first resource from the sidelink grant, based on the LBT failure of first resource (e.g., or the indication of the LBT failure). the first wireless device (e.g., the higher layer of the first wireless device) may replace the first resource in the sidelink grant by the second resource, based on the LBT failure of the first resource (e.g., or the indication of the LBT failure)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Di Girolamo et al. with the cited disclosure from Hui et al. in order to reduce power consumption, processing latency, transmission delay, computational complexity and/or hardware complexity for sidelink communications and increase robustness of sidelink communications (Hui et al., Paragraph 479).
Regarding claim 2, Di Girolamo et al. in view of Hui et al. disclose wherein: configuration information related to a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ)- acknowledgement (ACK) feedback for SL logical channel is set to enabled (Di Girolamo et al., Paragraphs 84, 90, 91, 254, Tables 7, 8, 10-12, HARQ feedback has been enabled; Hui et al., Paragraphs 245, 254, 437, HARQ feedback enabled/disabled indicator).
Regarding claim 3, Di Girolamo et al. disclose wherein: based on the SL consistent LBT being triggered a first number of times, the second SL resource pool is selected from the plurality of resource pools (Abstract, The WTRU may determine, based on the LBT failure, that a total number or consecutive number of detected LBT failures for one of the monitored TX resource pools exceeds a threshold, indicating a consistent LBT failure; Paragraph 251, a consistent LBT failure is determined on a “active” TX resource pool, the WTRU may autonomously change to an alternate TX resource pool that is being monitored, one for which no consistent LBT failure has been determined. The alternate TX resource pool may be “active” TX resource pool or an “inactive” TX resource pool).
Regarding claim 4, Di Girolamo et al. in view of Hui et al. disclose wherein: a second selected sidelink grant is generated based on the second SL resource pool (Hui et al., Paragraph 479, transmitting wireless device to determine whether to select a new resource pool or to select a new set of resources based on a number of LBT failures in a time period on the unlicensed/shared spectrum/cell/carrier/band; Paragraph 489, replace first resource in the sidelink grant by the second resource), and a medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (PDU) based on the second selected sidelink grant is transmitted to the second UE (Di Girolamo et al., Paragraphs 81, 83, 93, MAC PDU transmission based on sidelink grant).
Regarding claim 5, Di Girolamo et al. disclose wherein: based on configuration information related to a SL LBT failure recovery procedure being reconfigured by the base station, the SL consistent LBT is cancelled (Table 5, The MAC entity may be configured by RRC with a consistent SL LBT failure recovery procedure…For each configured granularity with sl_lbt-FailureRecoveryConfig, the MAC entity may:…1> if all triggered consistent LBT failures are cancelled for the configured granularity; or 1> if the sl-lbt-FailureDetectionTimer expires; or 1> if sl_lbt-FailureDetectionTimer or sl_lbt-FailureInstanceMaxCount is reconfigured by upper layers: 2> set SL_LBT_COUNTER to 0).
Regarding claim 6, Di Girolamo et al. disclose wherein: based on the consistent SL LBT being cancelled or a timer related to a detection of the consistent SL LBT expiring, a value of a SL LBT counter for SL LBT failure indication is set to 0 (Table 5, The MAC entity may be configured by RRC with a consistent SL LBT failure recovery procedure…For each configured granularity with sl_lbt-FailureRecoveryConfig, the MAC entity may:…1> if all triggered consistent LBT failures are cancelled for the configured granularity; or 1> if the sl-lbt-FailureDetectionTimer expires; or 1> if sl_lbt-FailureDetectionTimer or sl_lbt-FailureInstanceMaxCount is reconfigured by upper layers: 2> set SL_LBT_COUNTER to 0).
Regarding claim 7, Di Girolamo et al. disclose wherein: configuration information related to SL resource allocation mode 2 is received from the base station (Paragraph 78, the RRC may configure the PHY entity for sidelink operation. This includes the TX resource pool configuration, as well as mode 1 configuration, and mode 2 configuration; Paragraph 370, RRC configures Sidelink resource allocation mode 2).
Regarding claim 8, Di Girolamo et al. disclose wherein: based on a physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) transmission (Paragraph 78, sidelink resource allocations for transmission opportunities referred as PSCCH/PSSCH duration) not being performed due to the triggered consistent SL LBT failure (Paragraph 251, a consistent LBT failure is determined on a “active” TX resource poo), a SL resource reselection is triggered (Paragraph 251, the WTRU may autonomously change to an alternate TX resource pool that is being monitored, one for which no consistent LBT failure has been determined).
Regarding claim 9, Di Girolamo et al. disclose wherein: based on the consistent SL LBT triggered in a first SL BWP (Paragraph 194, Per resource pool: The WTRU may determine consistent LBT failure for a specific resource pool or group of resource pools. For example, a WTRU may determine consistent LBT failure for multiple TX resource pools. These resource pools may be in one SL BWP or over multiple SL BWPs; Paragraph 251, a consistent LBT failure is determined on a “active” TX resource pool) or a first cell not being cancelled, a SL resource reselection is triggered within a second SL BWP (Paragraph 251, a consistent LBT failure is determined on a “active” TX resource pool, the WTRU may autonomously change to an alternate TX resource pool that is being monitored, one for which no consistent LBT failure has been determined. The alternate TX resource pool may be “active” TX resource pool or an “inactive” TX resource pool; If resource pools are over multiple SL BWPs according to paragraph 194, then changing to an alternate resource pool may be considered reselection with a second SL BWP) or a second cell to generate a third selected SL grant.
Conclusion
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/OTIS L THOMPSON, JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477
July 17, 2026
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