Prosecution Insights
Last updated: October 16, 2026
Application No. 18/885,061

METHODS FOR NR SL MULTI-SUB-CHANNEL PSCCH TRANSMISSION

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Sep 13, 2024
Priority
Feb 22, 2019 — provisional 62/809,317 +4 more
Examiner
ISLAM, ROWNAK
Art Unit
2474
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
InterDigital Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
89%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
4m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 89% — above average
89%
Career Allowance Rate
411 granted / 464 resolved
+30.6% vs TC avg
Moderate +13% lift
Without
With
+13.2%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 5m
Avg Prosecution
13 currently pending
Career history
486
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
3.7%
-36.3% vs TC avg
§103
69.9%
+29.9% vs TC avg
§102
9.3%
-30.7% vs TC avg
§112
8.1%
-31.9% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 464 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . DETAILED ACTION This office action is a response to application no. 18/885,061 filed on 09/13/2024. Claims 1 – 14 are pending and ready for examination. Priority This application is a continuation of U.S. Patent Application No. 17/432,773 (patent no. US 12,144,016 B2), filed August 20, 2021, which is a 371 of PCT Patent Application No. PCT/US2020/019296, filed February 21, 2020, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/909,022, filed October 1, 2019, U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/886,505, filed August 14, 2019, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/809,317, filed February 22, 2019. Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statements (IDSs) submitted on 09/13/2024, 10/01/2024 and 08/12/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner. Examiner’s note The claims of the instant application is in different scope than that of the continuation parent application (patent no. US 12,144,016 B2); therefore, no double patenting (DP) rejection has been made. Claim Objections Claims 1 – 4 and 8 – 11 are objected to because of the following informalities: claims 1 and 8 recite in line 7 and 8, respectively “control resource information types”; it should read as, “control information resource Claims 2 and 9 recite “HARQ re-transmission resource”. Description of the acronym is required for the first time use in a claim. Claim 8 recites in line 2, “a transceiver configured to a plurality of resources”; it should read as, “a transceiver configured to receive a plurality of resources”. Appropriate corrections are required. 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 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 of this title, 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. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention. Claims 1 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over YANG et al. (YANG hereinafter referred to YANG) (US 2022/0070846 A1) in view of Sun et al. (Sun hereinafter referred to Sun) (US 2019/0037577 A1) and further in view of KIM et al. (KIM hereinafter referred to KIM) (WO 2019/036295 Al) (Cited in IDS). Regarding claim 1, YANG teaches a method for Sidelink communication (Title, NFORMATION TRANSMISSION METHOD FOR SIDELINK, AND USER EQUIPMENT AND COMPUTER-READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM) performed by a Wireless Transmit/Receive Unit (WTRU) (Fig.2 and [0053], receiving UE), the method comprising: receiving a plurality of resources over a Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH) in a slot (Fig.2 and [0053], a sending UE uses the control channel indication sequences to indicate time-frequency resource positions of the PSCCHs to a receiving UE; [0054], there are only one PSCCH or multiple PSCCHs configured in each time slot. Here, only one PSCCH in each time slot is considered and the time-frequency resource positions of the PSCCH are a plurality of resources over a PSCCH; therefore, a plurality of resources over a PSCCH is received in a slot by the receiving UE); determining the plurality of resources in the slot are control information resources (Fig.2, [0052] and [0054], control channel indication sequences are detected at a pre-set position of each time slot, where the control channel indication sequences has a one-to-one corresponding relationship with PSCCHs; [0056], A time-frequency resource position of a PSCCH corresponding to each control channel indication sequence includes a time-domain position and a frequency-domain position. Here, the plurality of resources correspond to control channel indication sequences; therefore, the control channel indication sequences in the slot are control information resources) and a control information resource type associated with the control information resources ([0017]-[0018], a time-frequency resource position of an actually used Physical Sidelink Feedback Channel (PSFCH) among PSFCHs corresponding to the time-frequency resource positions of the PSCCHs; Fig.3 and [0080], the control channel indication sequences correspond to a specific time-frequency position of the PSCCHs, or a time-frequency resource range of the PSCCHs. Here, the specific time-frequency position of the PSCCH (i.e. time-frequency resource position of PSFCH), or the time-frequency resource range of the PSCCH provide a control information resource type associated with the control information resources). YANG does not specifically teach determining a priority of the control information resource type based on a configuration relating priorities to control resource information types; and decoding the PSCCH according to the determined priority of the control information resource type. However, Sun teaches a method (Title, RESOURCE SELECTION METHOD IN VEHICLE TO EVERYTHING COMMUNICATION AND APPARATUS THEREFORE), the method comprising: determining a priority of the control information resource type based on a configuration relating priorities to control resource information types (Fig.14 and [0144], At block 1415 the UE 115 identifies a priority level of the first control resource set and a priority level of the second control resource set based on the control resource set configuration message; [0025], the control resource set configuration message comprises an indication of the default priority level of the at least one control resource set. Here, the first and the second control resource sets are the control information resource type and the control resource set configuration message is a configuration relating to control resource information types; therefore, the priority of the control information resource type is determined based on the configuration relating priorities to control information resource types). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified YANG as mentioned above and further incorporate the teaching of Sun. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide improved methods, systems, devices, and apparatuses that support managing overlapping control resource sets in a wireless communications system, wherein employment of overlapping control resource sets allows for reuse of resources, thereby improving the efficiency of the system (Sun, [0005] and [0041]). The combination of YANG and Sun does not specifically teach decoding the PSCCH according to the determined priority of the control information resource type. However, KIM teaches a method (Title, METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROL CHANNEL SCHEDULING IN WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS), the method comprising: determining a priority of the control information resource type based on a configuration ([0049], The selection and prioritization of sub-channels (or the PSCCH transmissions on the sub-channels) are based on prior knowledge of one or more of retransmission information, knowledge of the transmitting UEs, and long-term statistics of sub-channel utilization; [0050], Based on the above information, the UE determines a priority for each subchannel); and decoding the PSCCH according to the determined priority of the control information resource type ([0049], the UE performs PSCCH decoding (e.g., decode PSCCH transmissions on the selected sub-channels). The selected subset of the sub-channels include certain sub-channels, e.g., where high priority/important PSCCH transmissions occur, and thus PSCCH decoding is limited to the selected subset of sub-channels having high priority PSCCH transmissions. Here, decoding of the PSCCH is based on the priority of the control information resource type). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified combination of YANG and Sun as mentioned above and further incorporate the teaching of KIM. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide methods and techniques to control channel (e.g., PSCCH) scheduling/prioritizing techniques in wireless communications including, e.g., V2V and V2X communications for better utilization of available cycles to decode high priority PSCCH transmissions, thereby improving power efficiency, reliability and throughput of the UE (KIM, Abstract and [0045]). Regarding claim 8, YANG teaches (Title, NFORMATION TRANSMISSION METHOD FOR SIDELINK, AND USER EQUIPMENT AND COMPUTER-READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM) a Wireless Transmit/Receive Unit (WTRU) (Fig.2 and [0053], receiving UE; Fig.8 and [0104], structural diagram of a UE 80) comprising: a transceiver (Fig.8 and [0124], a transmission control unit 85) configured to a plurality of resources over a Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH) in a slot (Fig.2 and [0053], a sending UE uses the control channel indication sequences to indicate time-frequency resource positions of the PSCCHs to a receiving UE; [0054], there are only one PSCCH or multiple PSCCHs configured in each time slot. Here, only one PSCCH in each time slot is considered and the time-frequency resource positions of the PSCCH are a plurality of resources over a PSCCH; therefore, a plurality of resources over a PSCCH is received in a slot by the receiving UE); processor circuitry (Fig.8 and [0124], a first and a second detection unit 81 & 83, respectively and a first and a second determination unit 82 & 84, respectively. All the units together work as processor circuitry) configured to: determine the plurality of resources in the slot are control information resources (Fig.2, [0052] and [0054], control channel indication sequences are detected at a pre-set position of each time slot, where the control channel indication sequences has a one-to-one corresponding relationship with PSCCHs; [0056], A time-frequency resource position of a PSCCH corresponding to each control channel indication sequence includes a time-domain position and a frequency-domain position. Here, the plurality of resources correspond to control channel indication sequences; therefore, the control channel indication sequences in the slot are control information resources) and a control information resource type associated with the control information resources ([0017]-[0018], a time-frequency resource position of an actually used Physical Sidelink Feedback Channel (PSFCH) among PSFCHs corresponding to the time-frequency resource positions of the PSCCHs; Fig.3 and [0080], the control channel indication sequences correspond to a specific time-frequency position of the PSCCHs, or a time-frequency resource range of the PSCCHs. Here, the specific time-frequency position of the PSCCH (i.e. time-frequency resource position of PSFCH), or the time-frequency resource range of the PSCCH provide a control information resource type associated with the control information resources). YANG does not specifically teach determine a priority of the control information resource type based on a configuration relating priorities to control resource information types; and decode the PSCCH according to the determined priority of the control information resource type. However, Sun teaches (Title, RESOURCE SELECTION METHOD IN VEHICLE TO EVERYTHING COMMUNICATION AND APPARATUS THEREFORE): determine a priority of the control information resource type based on a configuration relating priorities to control resource information types (Fig.14 and At block 1415 the UE 115 identifies a priority level of the first control resource set and a priority level of the second control resource set based on the control resource set configuration message; [0025], the control resource set configuration message comprises an indication of the default priority level of the at least one control resource set. Here, the first and the second control resource sets are the control information resource type and the control resource set configuration message is a configuration relating to control resource information types; therefore, the priority of the control information resource type is determined based on the configuration relating priorities to control resource information types). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified YANG as mentioned above and further incorporate the teaching of Sun. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide improved methods, systems, devices, and apparatuses that support managing overlapping control resource sets in a wireless communications system, wherein employment of overlapping control resource sets allows for reuse of resources, thereby improving the efficiency of the system (Sun, [0005] and [0041]). The combination of YANG and Sun does not specifically teach decode the PSCCH according to the determined priority of the control information resource type. However, KIM teaches (Title, METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROL CHANNEL SCHEDULING IN WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS): determine a priority of the control information resource type based on a configuration ([0049], The selection and prioritization of sub-channels (or the PSCCH transmissions on the sub-channels) are based on prior knowledge of one or more of retransmission information, knowledge of the transmitting UEs, and long-term statistics of sub-channel utilization; [0050], Based on the above information, the UE determines a priority for each subchannel); and decode the PSCCH according to the determined priority of the control information resource type ([0049], the UE performs PSCCH decoding (e.g., decode PSCCH transmissions on the selected sub-channels). The selected subset of the sub-channels include certain sub-channels, e.g., where high priority/important PSCCH transmissions occur, and thus PSCCH decoding is limited to the selected subset of sub-channels having high priority PSCCH transmissions. Here, decoding of the PSCCH is based on the priority of the control information resource type). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified combination of YANG and Sun as mentioned above and further incorporate the teaching of KIM. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide methods and techniques to control channel (e.g., PSCCH) scheduling/prioritizing techniques in wireless communications including, e.g., V2V and V2X communications for better utilization of available cycles to decode high priority PSCCH transmissions, thereby improving power efficiency, reliability and throughput of the UE (KIM, Abstract and [0045]). Allowable Subject Matter Claims 2 – 7 and 9 – 14 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 The prior arts made of record and not relied upon are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. He et al. (Pub. No. US 2020/0029340 A1) – “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR NR V2X RESOURCE SELECTION” discloses a method of a first user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication comprises: receiving, from a second UE via a sidelink, signals including information to select resources for at least one of aperiodic traffic or periodic traffic; decoding sidelink control information (SCI) from the information included in the signals; performing, over a sensing window, a signal measurement of the received signals; identifying a resource selection window based on a latency requirement; reserving the resources for the at least one of aperiodic traffic or periodic traffic in a frequency domain and a time domain based on the decoded SCI and a result of the signal measurement, the resources being identified within a resource selection window; and transmitting, to the second UE via the sidelink, the at least one of aperiodic traffic or periodic traffic using the reserved resources. ZHANG et al. (Pub. No. US 2019/0387377 A1) – “RESOURCE SELECTION METHOD IN VEHICLE TO EVERYTHING COMMUNICATION AND APPARATUS THEREFORE” discloses a resource selection or reselection method by a user equipment (UE) and the UE in Vehicle to vehicle/pedestrian/infrastructure/network (V2X) communication. The method comprises the steps of: detecting physical sidelink control channel (PSCCH) transmitted by other UE(s); selecting (a) single-subframe resource(s) from single-subframe resources which do not overlap with single-subframe resources reserved by the detected PSCCH; and transmitting physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) on the selected single-subframe resource(s). Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROWNAK ISLAM whose telephone number is (571)272-8009. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday 8:30 am - 6 pm (EST). If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Michael Thier can be reached on 571-272-2832. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information Regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /ROWNAK ISLAM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2474
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Sep 13, 2024
Application Filed
Oct 01, 2024
Response after Non-Final Action
Aug 21, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103 (current)

Precedent Cases

Applications granted by this same examiner with similar technology

Patent 12764560
METHOD AND DEVICE FOR TRANSMISSION AND RECEPTION BASED ON DEFAULT SPATIAL PARAMETER IN WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
3y 10m to grant Granted Oct 13, 2026
Patent 12764776
DATA CONTROL METHOD AND APPARATUS, COMMUNICATION DEVICE, AND READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM
2y 10m to grant Granted Oct 13, 2026
Patent 12750184
METHOD AND DEVICE FOR WIRELESS COMMUNICATION
3y 2m to grant Granted Sep 29, 2026
Patent 12750699
COMMUNICATION METHOD AND DEVICE, AND STORAGE MEDIUM
2y 9m to grant Granted Sep 29, 2026
Patent 12739765
DEVICE-CONTROLLED ADAPTIVE DELAY DIVERSITY
3y 3m to grant Granted Sep 15, 2026
Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

Strategy Recommendation AI-generated — please review before filing

Get a prosecution strategy drawn from examiner precedents, rejection analysis, and claim mapping.
Typically takes 5-10 seconds — AI-generated, attorney review required before filing

Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
89%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+13.2%)
2y 5m (~4m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 464 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

Sign in with your work email

Enter your email to receive a magic link. No password needed.

Personal email addresses (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) are not accepted.

Free tier: 3 strategy analyses per month