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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments and amendments filed 01/12/2026 have been fully considered but are partially not persuasive and moot in view of new grounds of rejection.
Applicant amended representative claim 1, to recite “a number of times a discontinuous transmission (DTX) state is continuously detected, where the number of times the DTX state being continuously detected corresponds to ” …. “a number of consecutive absences”(previously discloses).
After careful review and consideration, Examination respectfully asserts this would be obvious in view of well-known and understood teachings within the field of invention.
Here, Lee (WO 2011155754 A2) discloses, a number of times a discontinuous transmission (DTX) state is continuously detected a number of times a discontinuous transmission (DTX) state is continuously detected, wherein the number of times the DTX state being continuously detected corresponds to (see bottom page 24, “the response information includes the first DTX information by placing the first DTX information in any one of a front end or a rear end of the continuous ACK / NACK information and the second DTX information”, therefore DTX related to continuous HARQ NACK).
Here, Lee explicitly relates to indicating a DTX state in relation to received ACK / NACK information. Furthermore, the “continuous ACK /NACK information” corresponds to the DTX information. This reads on the supporting elements of the instant specification in regards to paragraphs [0104]-[0107]. Were absences, received continuously are HARQ NACK.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 4-5, 7-8, 10-11, 13-14, 16-17, 20-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (US 2020/0252989 A1) in view Jia et al. (US 2019/0356428 A1) in view of Lee (WO 2011155754 A2).
Regarding Claims 1, 7 & 13; Chen method for sidelink (SL) monitoring, terminal and non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising:
a memory configured to store computer programs (see memory and processor [0022]); and
a processor (see memory and processor [0022]) configured to invoke and execute the computer programs stored in the memory to:
detecting (see [0076] declaration is based on HARQ NACK and thus detected), by a first terminal device, hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback information (see HARQ NACK occurrences [0076]) transmitted by a second terminal device in a first duration (see [0093], “wireless device might determine that link quality for the unicast sidelink wireless connection is poor when the channel state information is below a certain channel state information threshold for at least a certain time duration”); and
determining (see “determine” [0077]), by the first terminal device (see UE A in fig. 5), that a SL between the first terminal device and the second terminal device (see fig. UE B in fig. 5) is an out-of-sync state (see [0077], “RLM measurements to determine whether the wireless device is in-sync or out-of-sync ”)
Chen does not specifically disclose however Jia discloses when a number of consecutive absences of HARQ feedback (see JIA [0019] “consecutive negative acknowledgments” and “consecutive NACK threshold value”,, which aligns to applicant instant specification [0107] regarding consecutive HARQ-NACK) information reception reaches a threshold (see [0019], “consecutive NACK threshold value”) in the first duration (see completed “periodically” [0018]);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to combine the teachings of Jia with that of Chen. Doing so would conform to well-known standards in the field of invention, increase throughput, reduce resource usage and unnecessary waste of resources (see Jia [0003]);
Chen in view of Jia does not specifically disclose however Lee discloses a number of times a discontinuous transmission (DTX) state is continuously detected a number of times a discontinuous transmission (DTX) state is continuously detected, wherein the number of times the DTX state being continuously detected corresponds to (see bottom page 24, “the response information includes the first DTX information by placing the first DTX information in any one of a front end or a rear end of the continuous ACK / NACK information and the second DTX information”, therefore DTX related to continuous HARQ NACK);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to combine the teachings of Lee with that of Chen and Jia. Doing so would conform to well-known standards in the field of invention.
Regarding claim 2, 8 & 14; Chen discloses the method of claim 1, terminal of claim 7 and storage medium of claim 13, wherein (see control channel and reference signal [0075]), and the method further comprises:
transmitting, by the first terminal device, first indication information to the second terminal device, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating the second terminal device to transmit the HARQ feedback information to the first terminal device (see indication 506 in fig. 6).
Regarding claim 4, 10 & 16; Chen discloses the method of claim 2, terminal of claim 8 and storage medium of claim 14, wherein the first indication information is carried in a SL control channel or a SL data channel (see [0076] carried on side link control channel ).
Regarding claim 5, 11 & 17; Chen discloses the method of claim 2, terminal of claim 8 and storage medium of claim 14, wherein transmitting, by the first terminal device, the first indication information to the second terminal device comprises:
starting a timer by the first terminal device when the SL data is detected (see timer [0076]); and
transmitting, by the first terminal device, the first indication information to the second terminal device when the timer expires if no SL data is detected (see expiry [0076]).
Regarding claims 20, 21 & 22, Chen in view of Jai in further view of Lee disclose the method, terminal and non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1,
Lee specifically discloses wherein in the DTX state, no HARQ feedback information sent from the second terminal device is detected by the first terminal device (see bottom of page 24, DTX and HARQ NACK).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to combine the teachings of Lee with that of Chen and Jia. Doing so would conform to well-known standards in the field of invention.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (US 2020/0252989 A1) in view Jia et al. (US 2019/0356428 A1) in view of Lee (WO 2011155754 A2) in further view of Eriksson et al (US 2018/0007605 A1).
Regarding claim 19, Chen, Jia and Lee disclose the method of claim 1, the do not explicitly disclose however Eriksson discloses wherein radio link failure (RLF) occurs when a number of consecutive out-of-sync state reaches a second threshold (see second threshold, out-of-sync and RLF in [0063]);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to combine the teachings of Eriksson with that of Chen, Jia and Lee. Doing so would conform to well-known standards in the field of invention.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to K. WILFORD SHAHEED whose telephone number is (469) 295-9175. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 9 am-6pm; CST; ALT Friday. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. The examiner’s Supervisor, Jinsong Hu, can be reached at (571)272-3965, where attempts to reach the examiner are unsuccessful.
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/KHALID W SHAHEED/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2643