Detailed Action
1. This Office Action (OA) is in response to the applicant’s communication filed on 04/20/2026. In this OA, claims 1-20 are currently pending.
Response to Arguments
2. In Remarks, applicant mainly argues for the amended claim limitation “determine that a consistent listen-before-talk, LBT, failure on a sidelink resource block is detected”.
However, the amended claim limitation is considered obvious by the rationales found in the newly cited prior art, Lee in view of the previously applied prior art. See greater details in the claim rejection section set forth below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
4. The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
5. Claims 1-6, 8 and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Han et al. Pub. No.: US 2024/0008077 A1 in view of Lee et al. Pub. No.: US 2025/0392932 A1.
Claim 1
Han discloses a first terminal device (terminal device 120-1 in fig. 1-2) comprising:
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at least one processor (terminal device in fig. 1-2 for processor 410 in fig. 4); and
at least one memory (memory 420 in fig. 4) storing instructions (prog 430 in fig. 4) that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the first terminal device (processor in fig. 4 would be executing program in memory of fig. 4 for terminal in fig. 1 to perform the steps depicted in fig. 2) at least to:
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determine that a consistent listen-before-talk, LBT, failure on a set of sidelink resource is detected (steps 220-240 in fig. 2); and
transmit, to at least one of a second terminal device or a network device, information related to the consistent LBT failure (par. 0057, if the sidelink consistent LBT failure is detected by the terminal device 120-1, the terminal device can transmit a report associated with the sidelink consistent LBT failure to the network device, the number of failure or BWP could be information related).
Although Han does not explicitly show: “a sidelink resource block set; and transmit, to at least one of a second terminal device or a network device, information related to the consistent LBT failure, wherein the information comprises an indication of the sidelink resource block set”, the claim limitations are considered obvious by the following rationales.
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Firstly, to address the obviousness of the claim limitation “a sidelink resource block set”, initially, it’s to note that claim does not specifically define what are required to be the sidelink resource block set. See MPEP 2111. In fact, Han discloses an LBT failure MAC CE for sidelink with one octet (par. 0097-0098 and fig. 3A) and with 2 octets (fig. 3B and par. 0101-0102). Hence, fig. 3A-B of Han would have rendered the claimed feature “a sidelink resource block set” unless claim further recites what are required to be the SL RB set. Given the prosecution history, applicant is encouraged to consider all the possibilities and further evidence is provided herein to advance the prosecution. In particular, Lee teaches a consistent SL LBT failure for at least one of the first RB set among the plurality of SL resource pools and the plurality of RB sets (S920 in fig. 9).
Secondly, to address the obviousness of the claim limitations “wherein the information comprises an indication of the sidelink resource block set”, recall that recall that Han discloses a MAC CE related to a consistent SL LBT failure for at least the SL RB set including an indication for resource pool with one octet for indicating the resource pool (fig. 3A-B and par. 0097-0098 & 0101-0102). Again, fig. 3A-B of Han would have rendered the addressing claim limitation obvious. Given the prosecution history, applicant is encouraged to consider all the possibilities and further evidence is provided herein to advance the prosecution. In particular, Lee teaches reporting a MAC CE related to a consistent SL LBT failure for the resource pool or the SL RB set among the plurality of RB sets (S1020 from fig. 10 and see par. 0195, 0197 & 0298).
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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 sidelink communication and terminal device of Han by providing sidelink communication in wireless communication system as taught in Lee. Such a modification would have provided a sidelink resource pool to configure a plurality of resource block sets so that a second SL resource could be effectively selected from a consistent SL LBT failure report as suggested in par. 0008-0009 of Lee.
Claim 2
Han, in view of Lee, discloses the first terminal device of claim 1, wherein the first terminal device is caused to transmit the information to the second terminal device (Han, fig. 2-3) by:
based on determining that the first terminal device is out of coverage (Han, detecting energy level with a threshold in par. 0039) of the network device, transmit the information to the second terminal device (Lee, the communication range requirement to the longest communication range value in par. 0500-0501; since claim does not specifically define what are involved in out of coverage of the network device such as signal strength, no connection, ranging, distance measurement or GPS, it’ll be routine skill in the art to make UE in the combination of prior art to report including communication range instead of SL RB set or in addition to SL RB set; see MPEP 2143, KSR Exemplary Rationale C; see out of coverage evidence in par. 0048 & 0053 Ganesan et al. Pub. No.: US 2022/0225290 A1).
Claim 3
Han, in view of Lee, discloses the first terminal device of claim 1, wherein the first terminal device is caused to transmit the information to the network device by:
based on determining that the first terminal device is in coverage of the network device, transmit the information to the network device (Han, as depicted in fig. 1-2 and par. 0057-0058, the terminal device 120-1 will report to the network device; Lee, the communication range requirement to the longest communication range value in par. 0500-0501; accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the claim to perform equally well with the combined prior art).
Claim 4
Han, in view of Lee, discloses the first terminal device of claim 1, wherein the information comprises at least one of the following:
an indication that the consistent LBT failure is detected on the sidelink resource block set (Han, fig. 3A-B; sidelink LBT failure indication is counted per resource pool or per BWP in par. 0157 and see par. 0058-0061 for report 1 in mode 1 for selecting resource in indication; Lee, fig. 3 & 9-11); or
an indication of a duration of the consistent LBT failure (Han, 240 in fig. 2 and par. 0106; Lee, COT duration for failing LBT in par. 0409; it’s to note that claim recites Markush Form for alternative limitations and thus, the combined prior art reads on the claim, see MPEP 2117 Markush Claim; see evidence in LBT failure timer and counter in Park et al. Pub. No.: US 2025/0294607 A1).
Claim 5
Han, in view of Lee, discloses the first terminal device of claim 1, wherein the first terminal device is further caused to:
receive, from the second terminal device (Lee, UE in fig. 7 & 11), at least one sidelink transmission on at least one sidelink resource determined based on the information (Lee, S1130 & S1170 in fig. 11; and thus, the combined prior art reads on the claim limitation).
Claim 6
Han, in view of Lee, discloses the first terminal device of claim 5, wherein the at least one sidelink resource is mapped to at least one physical sidelink feedback channel, PSFCH (Lee, PSFCH in fig. 11 and see fig. 6 also), resource different from the sidelink resource block set (Han fig. 3A-B; Lee, reselected resource sidelink in fig. 11), and the first terminal device is further caused to:
transmit a hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ, feedback to the second terminal device for the at least one sidelink transmission (Lee, sidelink retransmission in fig. 11, HARQ in par. 0110 & 0114 and see fig. 7a; accordingly, the combined prior art renders the claim obvious).
Claim 8
Han, in view of Lee, discloses the first terminal device of claim 1, wherein the sidelink resource bock set (Han, sidelink bandwidth part SL-BWP in par. 0047 & 0057 and fig. 3A-B) comprise at least one of the following:
at least one resource block, RB, set (Han, see fig. 3A-B and fig. 3 of Lee);
at least one resource pool (Han, fig. 3A-B for resource pool); or
at least one bandwidth part (Han, SL-BWP in par. 0051; changing SL BWP in S1140 in fig. 11 of Lee; therefore, the combined prior art meets the claim condition; see MPEP 2117 Markush claims).
Claim 16-20
Claims 16-20 are method claims corresponding to device claims 1-4 and 8. All of the limitations in claims 16-20 are found reciting the same scopes of the respective limitations of claims 1-4 and 8. Accordingly, claims 16-20 are considered obvious by the same rationales applied in the rejection of claims 1-4 and 8 respectively set forth above.
6. Claims 9-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Han in view of Lee and Ozturk et al. Pub. No.: US 2022/0201760 A1.
Claim 9
Han teaches a network device (network device 110 in fig. 1-4) comprising:
at least one processor (processor 410 in fig. 4 in par. 0115-0016); and
at least one memory (memory 420 in fig. 4) storing instructions (prog 430 in fig. 4) that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the network device (network device in fig. 1-4 would perform by executing the program in memory with the processor) at least to:
receive, from a first terminal device (terminal device 120-1 in fig. 1-4), first information related to a consistent listen-before-talk, LBT, failure, which is detected by the first terminal device on a set of sidelink resources (240-260 in fig. 2; par. 0057, if the sidelink consistent LBT failure is detected by the terminal device 120-1, the terminal device can transmit a report associated with the sidelink consistent LBT failure to the network device, the number of failure or BWP could be information related).
Although Han does not explicitly show: “a sidelink resource block set; wherein the information comprises an indication of the sidelink resource block set; and transmit, to a second terminal device second information determined based on the first information”, the claim limitations are considered obvious by the following rationales.
Firstly, to address the obviousness of the claim limitation “a sidelink resource block set”, initially, it’s to note that claim does not specifically define what are required to be the sidelink resource block set. See MPEP 2111. In fact, Han discloses an LBT failure MAC CE for sidelink with one octet (par. 0097-0098 and fig. 3A) and with 2 octets (fig. 3B and par. 0101-0102). Hence, fig. 3A-B of Han would have rendered the claimed feature “a sidelink resource block set” unless claim further recites what are required to be the SL RB set. Given the prosecution history, applicant is encouraged to consider all the possibilities and further evidence is provided herein to advance the prosecution. In particular, Lee teaches a consistent SL LBT failure for at least one of the first RB set among the plurality of SL resource pools and the plurality of RB sets (S920 in fig. 9).
Secondly, to address the obviousness of the claim limitations “wherein the information comprises an indication of the sidelink resource block set”, recall that recall that Han discloses a MAC CE related to a consistent SL LBT failure for at least the SL RB set including an indication for resource pool with one octet for indicating the resource pool (fig. 3A-B and par. 0097-0098 & 0101-0102). Again, fig. 3A-B of Han would have rendered the addressing claim limitation obvious. Given the prosecution history, applicant is encouraged to consider all the possibilities and further evidence is provided herein to advance the prosecution. In particular, Lee teaches reporting a MAC CE related to a consistent SL LBT failure for the resource pool or the SL RB set among the plurality of RB sets (S1020 from fig. 10 and see par. 0195, 0197 & 0298).
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 sidelink communication and terminal device of Han by providing sidelink communication in wireless communication system as taught in Lee. Such a modification would have provided a sidelink resource pool to configure a plurality of resource block sets so that a second SL resource could be effectively selected from a consistent SL LBT failure report as suggested in par. 0008-0009 of Lee.
Lastly, to consider the obviousness of the claim limitation “transmit, to a second terminal device second information determined based on the first information”, Han in view of Lee discloses a network device that could communicate with a second terminal devices (fig. 1 of Han and fig. 7 & 11 of Lee) and Tx UE for transmitting the second information based on the first information (S1170 of fig. 11 in Lee).
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In particular, Ozturk teaches base station for transmitting a new sidelink configuration after receiving LBT failure report (520a in fig. 5) and the features associated with unicast link or a groupcast link (see par. 0061, 0071 0096-0097, it means that at 520a in fig. 5, if a groupcast link, UE 2 could listen or hear the a new sidelink configuration too).
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 sidelink communication and terminal device of Han in view of Lee by providing listen-before-talk LBT failure reporting for sidelink channels as taught in Ozturk. Such a modification would have provided a user equipment UE to report LBT failure so that spectral efficiency could be increased for mobile broadband access as suggested in par. 0004 in Ozturk.
Claim 10
Han, in view of Lee and Ozturk, discloses the network device of claim 9, wherein the first information comprises at least one of the following:
an indication that the consistent LBT failure is detected on the sidelink resource block set (Han, sidelink LBT failure indication is counted per resource pool or per BWP in par. 0157 and see par. 0058-0061 for report 1 in mode 1 for selecting resource in indication; fig. 9-11 of Lee); or
an indication of a duration of the consistent LBT failure (Ozturk, 620 in fig. 6 and par. 0046, failures of an LBT procedure within an amount of time and see 710 in fig.7; Han, par. 0106; it’s to note that claim recites Markush Form for alternative limitations and thus, the combined prior art reads on the claim, see MPEP 2117 Markush Claim).
Claim 11
Han, in view of Lee and Ozturk, discloses the network device of claim 10, wherein the sidelink resource block set (Han, fig. 3A-B, sidelink bandwidth part SL-BWP in par. 0047 & 0057; fig. 3 of Lee) comprise at least one of the following:
at least one resource block, RB, set (Ozturk, see fig. 3 and resource block RB in par. 0054 & 0056-0057);
at least one resource pool (Han, fig. 3A-B for resource pool); or
at least one bandwidth part (Han, SL-BWP in par. 0051; therefore, the combined prior art meets the claim condition; see MPEP 2117 Markush claims).
Claim 12
Han, in view of Lee and Ozturk, discloses the network device of claim 10, wherein the first information is received from the first terminal device in the event that the first terminal device is in coverage (Han, detecting energy level with a threshold in par. 0039) of the network device (Han, as depicted in fig. 1-2 and par. 0057-0058, the terminal device 120-1 will report to the network device; Ozturk, receiving sidelink bearer assignment or the synchronization signal is one way to determine UE is still in the coverage of the mobile network as explained in par. 0039 and see fig. 5 for receiving sidelink configuration; accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the claim to perform equally well with the combined prior art).
Claim 13
Han, in view of Lee and Ozturk, discloses the network device of claim 10, wherein the network device is caused to transmit the second information to the second terminal device by:
based on determining that the second terminal device is in coverage of the network device (Han, as depicted in fig. 1-2 and par. 0057-0058, the terminal device 120-1 will report to the network device; Ozturk, receiving sidelink bearer assignment or the synchronization signal is one way to determine UE is still in the coverage of the mobile network as explained in par. 0039 and see fig. 5 for receiving sidelink configuration; accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the claim to perform equally well with the combined prior art), transmit the second information to the second terminal device (Han, as depicted in fig. 1, the network device may communicate with the second terminal; Ozturk, consider 520a in fig. 5 is groupcast link; accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would have expected the claim to perform equally well with the combined prior art).
Claim 14
Han, in view of Lee and Ozturk, discloses the network device of claim 10, wherein the second information comprises at least one of the following:
an indication that the consistent LBT failure is detected on the sidelink resource block set (Han, sidelink LBT failure indication is counted per resource pool or per BWP in par. 0157 and see par. 0058-0061 for report 1 in mode 1 for selecting resource in indication; fig. 9-11 of Lee);
an indication of a duration of the consistent LBT failure (Ozturk, 620 in fig. 6 and par. 0046, failures of an LBT procedure within an amount of time); or
an indication of the sidelink resource block set (Han, par. 0106; Ozturk, 710 in fig.7; it’s to note that claim recites Markush Form for alternative limitations and thus, the combined prior art reads on the claim, see MPEP 2117 Markush Claim).
Claim 15
Han, in view of Lee and Ozturk, discloses the network device of claim 10, wherein the second information comprises an indication of at least one sidelink resource allocated for at least one sidelink transmission (Ozturk, fig. 5; fig. 2-9 of Yi) to be transmitted from the second terminal device to the first terminal device (fig. 11 of Lee; Ozturk, two UEs in fig. 5).
the first terminal device of claim 1, wherein the first terminal device is further caused to:
receive, from the second terminal device (fig. 5 of Ozturk), at least one sidelink transmission on at least one sidelink resource determined based on the information (Lee, S1130 & S1170 in fig. 11; for these reasons, the combined prior art renders the claim obvious).
Allowable Subject Matter
7. Claim 7 is 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
8. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contact Information
9. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAN HTUN whose telephone number is (571)270-3190. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 7 AM - 5 PM.
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/SAN HTUN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643
Prosecution Insights