DETAILED ACTION
Status of Case
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This Office Action is in response to the claims filed on 10/25/2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) filed on 10/25/2024 has been considered by 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.
Claims 1-4, 7-14, and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ye (WO 2020/033628) in view of Cao (USPAN 2021/0144750).
Consider claims 1 and 11, Ye discloses a method for use in a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) (see paragraph 10: “in-device coexistence implementation may be provided…to support cases where a single WTRU supports LTE sidelink and NR sidelink”; also, see figure 2, reproduced below for convenience, wherein disclosed is said method) and a corresponding wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) comprising: a receiver; a transmitter; and a processor (see paragraph 5, wherein disclosed is said WTRU; also, see figure 1B, wherein disclosed is said receiver and transmitter (disclosed as transceiver 120) and said processor 118); wherein:
the receiver is configured to receive configuration information indicating reference signal received power (RSRP) threshold information (see the first three blocks of the flowchart shown in figure 2: receive high layer parameters for resource selection, determine candidate resources, and obtain RSRP threshold); the processor is configured to select New Radio (NR) sidelink (SL) candidate resources, from a NR SL resource pool (see paragraphs 183, 191, and 198: the resource pool for NR SL), for a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ)-enabled NR SL transmission (see paragraphs 258-264: HARQ-enabled), based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) sensing information, wherein the LTE sensing information indicates reserved LTE SL resources of another WTRU (see paragraphs 187, 197, 198, and 272: said reserved LTE SL resources); the processor is further configured to exclude a NR SL candidate resource from the selected NR SL candidate resources, wherein the excluded NR SL candidate resources has an associated NR SL PSFCH resource that overlaps with at least one of the reserved LTE resources of the another WTRU; the processor is further configured to select a NR SL resource within remaining NR SL candidate resources (see figure 2, block 6: “Exclude a candidate resource from SA if conflicting in T-Domain with other WTRU’s data transmissions”; also, see paragraph 197: “The resources of time overlapping with the reserved LTE SL transmission may be excluded from the candidate resources for NR SL resource selection”; also, see figure 8, reproduced below for convenience); and the transmitter is configured to transmit information in a NR SL physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) transmission in the selected NR SL resource (see paragraphs 91, 92, 113, and 114: said transmission via PSSCH).
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Ye does not specifically disclose determining a NR SL physical SL feedback channel (PSFCH) resource associated with each NR SL candidate resource of the selected NR SL candidate resources.
Cao, in view of the teachings of Ye of the candidate resources, discloses determining a NR SL physical SL feedback channel (PSFCH) resource associated with each NR SL candidate resource of the selected NR SL candidate resources (see paragraphs 100, 109, 110, 114, and 247: feedback channel PSFCH for each of said resources).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Ye and combine it with the noted teachings of Cao. The motivation to combine these references is to provide an efficient method for resource reservation and selection for sidelink communications (see paragraph 2 of Cao).
Consider claims 2 and 12, Ye discloses that the received configuration information comprises at least one of: LTE SL sub-carrier spacing information, NR SL sub-carrier spacing information, a number of physical resource blocks (PRBs) for an LTE SL sub-channel, a number of PRBs for a NR SL sub-channel, LTE SL synchronization signal (SSS) resource configuration information, and NR SL PSFCH resource configuration information (see paragraph 181: the configuration information includes NR SL subcarrier spacing).
Consider claims 3 and 13, Ye discloses determining an association between time and frequency resources of an LTE SL resource pool and time and frequency resources of the NR SL resource pool (see paragraph 183: “The gNB may consider the frequency and time resource locations of the LTE SL resource pool for its scheduling of NR SL transmissions. The eNB may consider the frequency and time resource locations of the NR SL resource pool for its scheduling of LTE SL transmissions.”).
Consider claims 4 and 14, Ye discloses that the LTE sensing information further indicates a priority of the reserved LTE SL resources of the another WTRU (see figure 4 and paragraph 110).
Consider claims 7 and 17, Ye discloses that the selecting NR SL candidate resources is in response to received trigger information (see paragraphs 279 and 284: the WTRU may be triggered).
Consider claims 8 and 18, Ye discloses the excluding a NR SL candidate resource from the selected NR SL candidate resources is further based on the excluded NR SL candidate resource overlapping with at least one of the reserved LTE SL resources of the another WTRU (see figure 2, block 6: “Exclude a candidate resource from SA if conflicting in T-Domain with other WTRU’s data transmissions”; also, see paragraph 197: “The resources of time overlapping with the reserved LTE SL transmission may be excluded from the candidate resources for NR SL resource selection”; also, see figure 8).
Consider claims 9 and 19, Ye discloses that excluding a NR SL candidate resource from the selected NR SL candidate resources is based on a priority of a NR SL transport block or a priority of a reserved LTE resource (see paragraphs 97, 103, 124, and 151).
Consider claims 10 and 20, Ye discloses that the LTE sensing information comprises at least one of: LTE SL synchronized signal block (SSB) resources, received LTE SSB reference signal receive power (RSRP), resources reserved for an LTE V2X transmission by the WTRU, resources reserved for an LTE V2X transmission intended for the WTRU, resources reserved for an LTE V2X transmission not intended for the WTRU, and RSRPs for the resources reserved for the LTE V2X transmission not intended for the WTRU (see paragraphs 5 and 7: the LTE sensing information is for resources reserved for an LTE V2X transmission intended for the WTRU).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 6, 15, and 16 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jamal Javaid whose telephone number is 571-270-5137 and email address is Jamal.Javaid@uspto.gov.
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/JAMAL JAVAID/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412
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