DETAILED ACTION
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 submission filed 2025-11-14 (herein referred to as the Reply) where claim(s) 1, 3, 5-6, 8, 20, 25, 27-28, 30-31, 33, 37-41 are pending for consideration.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on identified above has been entered.
35 USC §112(b) – Claim Rejections
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim(s) is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) for not particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter of the invention.
Claim(s) 1, 20, 31 and 3, 5-6, 8, 25, 27-28, 30, 33, 37-44
Variables: M and N
The claim(s) recites a variables or equivalent (i.e., “a number of”) that is unbounded. Consequently, a broadest reasonable interpretation includes that the variable can be assigned to a value or a type of value that makes the claim indefinite.
For example, the claim allows M to be 0 and at the same time N to be any other number. Accordingly, the connection message to contain no identifiers that can indicate one SL unicast radio link connection (i.e., N = 0). In another example N = 0 while M = 10, so the claim requires 10 identifiers indicate 0 failed link connections, which doesn’t make sense. Meaningful limits need to be put on M and N for the scope of the claim exclude scenarios that don’t’ make sense.
Dependent claims do not cure the deficiencies of the base/intervening claims as discussed herein and are therefore rejected for at least the same reasons.
Claim(s) 37-44
“the second UE”
Due to the insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim, it is unclear as to how to construe the limitation – for example, it is unclear where this limitation originated and/or if the limitation was intended to refer to a previously cited element.
More particularly, the base claims already cite “at least one second UE” but this is different words than “a second UE.” It’s unclear whether “the second UE” is referring to the “at least one second UE” (and at the same time implicitly limiting it to only a single second UE) is or attempting to introduce another second UE that is distinct and different.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) is/are indicated as having allowable subject matter over the prior art but rejected to herein.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 5-6, 8, 20, 25, 27-28, 30-31, 33, 37-44
The claim(s) include allowable subject matter with respect to the prior art and would be allowable if:
(i) Rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
(ii) Amended to overcome other non-prior art rejections and/or objections presented herein (e.g., 35 USC 112 and 101 rejections), including rejections/objections directed to base and intervening claims.
(iii) In cases where claim limitations were unclear/indefinite and the Examiner indicated what he/she thought what the limitations attempted to convey, any clarifying amendments would need to be commensurate with the Examiner’s interpretation.
Reasons for allowance are in the Reponse to Arguments section.
In addition to the explicit reasons given herein, allowability is also determined in view of the combination of references required for obviousness, the inter-relationship between other claimed limitations, and the claimed invention as a whole. Accordingly, amendments that do not incorporate the allowable claims into the base/intervening claims in its entirely, are not allowable. This includes amendments that incorporate the allowable claims into the base/intervening claims in part or in a non-narrowing manner (i.e., changing the scope of the subject matter).
Response to Arguments
The following arguments in the Reply have been fully considered and are persuasive:
Prior Art:
The independent claims were amended with features of both (now canceled) claims 4 and 35. In final action 2025-08-21, claim 4 was rejected using WANG_533 (US20210392533) in view of TSENG_856 (US20210136856), and further view of WU_400 (US20180070400); claim 35 was rejected using WANG_533 (US20210392533) in view of TSENG_856 (US20210136856), and further view of HAN_032 (US20220117032). In view of the Reply’s argument regarding each of these reference, the Examiner is persuaded and does not believe a hypothetical combination of WANG_533 (US20210392533), TSENG_856 (US20210136856), WU_400 (US20180070400), and HAN_032 (US20220117032), to anticipate the independent claims would be proper for the reasons set forth by the Reply.
The Reply’s arguments with respect to the other matters have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to the rejection(s), which was necessitated by the Applicant’s amendments, being used in the current rejection.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDRE TACDIRAN whose telephone number is 571-272-1717. The examiner can normally be reached on M-TH, 10-5PM EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski can be reached on 571-270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANDRE TACDIRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415