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 .
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.
The factual inquiries 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.
Claim 1-10, 52- 57, 59, 62, 63, 64 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) in view of Lin et al. (US 20220353815 A1 dated 2020-01-07), Lee et al. (WO 2020032698 A1 date filed 2019-08-09)
As to claim 1, DI GIROLAMO discloses A user equipment (UE) for wireless communication (UE 201), comprising:
at least one memory (non-removable memory 130, removable memory 132); and at least one processor (processor 118) coupled with the at least one memory (non-removable memory 130, removable memory 132) and operable to cause the UE to:
determine whether a sidelink (SL) discontinuous reception (DRX) procedure is enabled (Paragraph [0216] – “At step 241, UE 201 may determine that DTX may be used on SL transmissions to UE 202. At step 242, UE 201 may send a request message to UE 202 to enable SL DRX.”); and
receive, in response to the SL DRX procedure being enabled, SL DRX configuration (Paragraph [0216] – “At step 244, UE 201, in response to the enabling of step 243, receives a message associated with the request of step 242 (e.g., acknowledging the enablement of SL DRX for UE 202).”).
and receive a higher layer parameter, indicating a priority of a partial sensing procedure being higher than a priority of the SL DRX procedure, (Paragraph 168, Fig. 13 – “The SL DRX configuration may provide the details as shown in the Section for SL Configured DRX operation. It is assumed that the there is some network coordination to ensure that the same SL DRX configuration per resource pool is provided in the pre-configured resource pool information, as well as in neighbouring serving cells. Announcing UEs may ensure to only send discovery messages when monitoring UEs are in active mode (during Discovery Windows). As a result, monitoring UEs may stop reception on a resource pool that is in DRX (outside of the Discovery Windows).” Here in DRX off mode, UEs stop reception meaning that the priority of the partial sensing procedure is higher than SL DRX procedure priority, see Fig. 13); and perform, based on the priority of the partial sensing procedure being higher than the priority of the SL DRX procedure, a sensing operation in an on sensing duration of a partial sensing procedure when the on sensing duration is located within an off duration of the SL DRX procedure. (Paragraph [0015] – “The duration of ‘ON time’ within one DRX cycle drx-InactivityTimer Specify how long UE should remain ‘ON’ after the reception of a PDCCH. When this timer is on UE remains in ‘ON state’ which may extend UE ON period into the period which is ‘OFF’ period otherwise.” This can be compared with on sensing duration of a partial sensing procedure. Paragraph [0323] – “the two SL DRX configurations may have different drx-onDurationTimerSL and drx-InactivityTimerSL timers.” This can be treated as one being on while the other is off. The examiner is equating the UE remaining in the “ON state” after reception of PDCCH to the “ON” portion of the claimed partial sensing procedure. This scenario is shown in figure 2 of DiGirolamo. The UE is in the ON state during SFN 0 and SFN 3, due to the PDCCH being ON in subframe zero in each of SFN 0 and SFN3. Figure 2 further shows that onDurationTimer is OFF during subframes 1-4 and 7-9 of SFN0 and also OFF during subframes 2-4 and 7-9 of SFN3. This would be equivalent to subframes 2-4 and 7-9 of SFN 1 of the current application, which applicant stated in the interview was support for the amended claim limitation.)
DI GIROLAMO et al. does not explicitly recite but in an analogous art, Lin et al. (US 20220353815 A1 dated 2020-01-07) discloses wherein the SL DRX configuration information comprises a SL DRX cycle gap parameter, a SL DRX active time parameter, or a SL DRX offset parameter (Paragraph [0059] – “In order to introduce a DRX-like mechanism for SL communication, a V2X UE needs to know when to communicate with the peer UE, i.e., whether the peer UE is in the SL DRX active time.”).
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 the wireless network of DI GIROLAMO et al. to include the means to SL DRX active time configuration as taught by wireless network of Lin et al. in order to know when to communicate with the peer UE.
DI GIROLAMO et al. does not explicitly recite but in an analogous art, Lee et al. (WO 2020032698 A1 date filed 2019-08-09) discloses wherein sensing is enabled during an on sensing duration of the partial sensing procedure based at least in part on the priority of the partial sensing procedure being higher than the priority of the SL DRX procedure (Description on page 14 – “Or, for example, transmission of a message based on resource allocation mode 2 may be set to a relatively high priority.” Here the resource allocation mode 2 procedure is a partial sensing procedure based on “Intelligent Partial-Sensing-Based Autonomous Resource Allocation for NR V2X” located at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10182300, attached here. Description on page 12 - “On the other hand, when the terminal performs different RAT (eg, NR and LTE) based SL communication on different channels, transmission power distribution, synchronization, time synchronization, half-duplex problem, and priority of service An efficient coexistence method may be necessary in consideration of ranking, and / or type of service. In addition, when the terminal performs different RAT (eg, NR and LTE) based SL communication on the same channel, transmission power distribution, synchronization, time synchronization, half-duplex problem, and priority of service. An efficient coexistence method may be necessary in consideration of ranking, and / or type of service. For example, the coexistence may be in-device coexistence. For example, the different channels can be different consecutive channels in the intra-band. For example, different channels may be discontinuous different channels in the intra-band. For example, different channels may be different channels on the inter-band” This paragraph talks about prioritizing different channels and services and some of those channels may be discontinuous (DRX) whereas mode 2 or partial sensing procedure is given high priority)
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 the wireless network of DI GIROLAMO et al. to include the means to setting up partial sensing procedure with high priority as taught by wireless network of Lee et al. in order to use partial sensing procedure for saving power.
As to claim 2, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the SL DRX configuration information is determined based on a priority of predicted reception traffic (Paragraph [0304] – “The SL DRX configuration may be based on the traffic type.”). Further, it is noted that claim 1 is to an apparatus patentably defined by its structure. Claims 2-4 appear to limit the contents of data received by the apparatus and therefore carries no patentable weight as it is an intended use and is also considered as a nonfunctional descriptive limitation. Art has been applied for compact prosecution.
As to claim 3, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the SL DRX configuration information is determined based on a default priority of the SL DRX procedure (Paragraph [0027] – “The following parameters are used for the calculation of PF and i_s above: [0028] T: DRX cycle of the UE (T is determined by the shortest of the UE specific DRX value(s), if configured by RRC or upper layers, and a default DRX value broadcast in system information. If UE specific DRX is not configured by RRC or by upper layers, the default value is applied)”).
As to claim 4, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the SL DRX configuration information includes a parameter 1 indicating a priority of the SL DRX procedure, and the parameter is selected from one or more priority values (Paragraph [304] – “The SL DRX configurations may have an associated priority value (drx-PrioritySL). The SL DRX configuration may be based on the traffic type. For example, drx-PrioritySL may be equivalent to the priority of the traffic with the highest priority carried in all the SL communications impacted by the SL DRX configuration.”).
As to claim 5, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the least one processor is operable to cause the UE to: compare (Paragraph [0168], Fig. 13 – “The SL DRX configuration may provide the details as shown in the Section for SL Configured DRX operation. It is assumed that the there is some network coordination to ensure that the same SL DRX configuration per resource pool is provided in the pre-configured resource pool information, as well as in neighboring serving cells. Announcing UEs may ensure to only send discovery messages when monitoring UEs are in active mode (during Discovery Windows).” i.e., compare) a priority of a partial sensing procedure and a priority of the SL DRX procedure (Paragraph [0167] – “In order to use DRX in the SL_UnLinked state 212, a common knowledge of the communication resources in time, frequency and space is needed between the transmitter UE and the receiving UE, so that they may both determine when to enable and disable the DRX operation (Step 221) as well as how to configure the SL DRX for the discovery (Step 222). Typical common knowledge that may be used, include: resource pool, sidelink bandwidth part, service or service type, or UE Device class (i.e., UE device category), among other things.”)
Note that being ‘operable’ carries little if any patentable weight as it only means ‘able to’ as opposed to being configured to do which results in a structural limitation. Art has been applied for compact prosecution.
As to claim 6, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the priority of the partial sensing procedure is determined based on a priority of predicted transmission traffic (Paragraph [0135] – “During these slots, UE 201 is required to monitor the SCI/PSCCH to determine if there is any sidelink traffic addressed to it.” Here traffic has the priority, thereby sensing or monitoring is required to be based on the traffic).
As to claim 7, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the priority of the partial sensing procedure is determined based on a default priority of the partial sensing procedure (Paragraph [0253] – “For transmit UEs using sensing for scheduling (Mode 2 resource allocation), the transmit UEs may use the signaled SL DRX configuration to guarantee that the slots occurring during the SL DRX OFF periods, are not selected for SL transmissions, during the during TX resource (re-)selection procedure” Here the default priority of the sensing procedure is that the slots occurring during the SL DRX OFF periods, are not selected for SL transmissions).
As to claim 8, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is operable to cause the UE to:
perform, in response to the priority of the SL DRX procedure being higher than the priority of the partial sensing procedure, the sensing operation in on sensing duration of the partial sensing procedure when the on sensing duration is located within an on duration of the SL DRX procedure; and monitor one or more partial sensing subframes for physical sidelink shared channel (PSSCH) transmission (Paragraph [0168], Fig. 13 – “The SL DRX configuration may provide the details as shown in the Section for SL Configured DRX operation. It is assumed that the there is some network coordination to ensure that the same SL DRX configuration per resource pool is provided in the pre-configured resource pool information, as well as in neighboring serving cells. Announcing UEs may ensure to only send discovery messages when monitoring UEs are in active mode (during Discovery Windows).”) Here during Discovery windows it can only send messages meaning that SL DRX procedure has higher priority).
As to claim 9, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is operable to cause the UE to:
stop, in response to the priority of the SL DRX procedure being higher than the priority of the partial sensing procedure, performing a sensing operation in an on sensing duration of the partial sensing procedure when the on sensing duration is located within an off duration of the SL DRX procedure (Paragraph 168, Fig. 13 – “The SL DRX configuration may provide the details as shown in the Section for SL Configured DRX operation. It is assumed that the there is some network coordination to ensure that the same SL DRX configuration per resource pool is provided in the pre-configured resource pool information, as well as in neighbouring serving cells. Announcing UEs may ensure to only send discovery messages when monitoring UEs are in active mode (during Discovery Windows). As a result, monitoring UEs may stop reception on a resource pool that is in DRX (outside of the Discovery Windows).” Here in DRX off mode, UEs stop reception meaning that SL DRX procedure priority is higher than the priority of the partial sensing procedure, see Fig. 13).
As to claim 10, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 9, wherein the at least one processor is operable to cause the UE to:
use, in response to supporting a random selection procedure for a resource pool, the random selection procedure to select a resource from a set of candidate subframes corresponding to the on sensing duration of the partial sensing procedure when the on sensing duration is located within the off duration of the SL DRX procedure (Paragraph [0388] – “a PDCCH indicating a new transmission addressed to the C-RNTI of the MAC entity has not been received after successful reception of a Random Access Response for the Random Access Preamble not selected by the MAC entity among the contention-based Random Access Preamble (as described in clause 5.1.4)” Here a random selection procedure for a resource pool is supported).
As to claim 52, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the SL DRX configuration information is received from a higher layer (Paragraph [0503] – “The assistance information may comprise: a number of active SL communications for the apparatus, a preferred SL DRX configuration, or an indication that the apparatus is requesting SL DRX for a certain resource pool, frequency, SL BWP, SL service type, cast type, or peer UE. The assistance information and configuration message may be transmitted over a PC5 Radio Resource Control (RRC) message or over a MAC Control Element (CE).” Here MAC is a higher layer as mentioned in the specification.).
As to claim 53, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the priority of the partial sensing procedure is received from a higher layer (Paragraph [0393] – “Regardless of whether the MAC entity is monitoring PDCCH or not, the MAC entity transmits HARQ feedback, aperiodic CSI on PUSCH, and aperiodic SRS defined in TS 38.214 when such is expected.” Here monitoring is meant by sensing. MAC is a higher layer as mentioned in the specification).
As to claim 54, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is operable to cause the UE to: report partial sensing configuration information to a different UE (Paragraph [0336] – “UE issues a CSI request to a peer UE (for example via an indication through an SCI to the peer UE), and the MAC entity is waiting for the SL-CSI report (for example through a SL CSI MAC CE) from this peer UE. The CSI is pending until the UE receives a SL-CSI report from the peer UE, or a CSI request timer expires.” Here a peer UE means a different UE).
As to claim 55, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 54, wherein the partial sensing configuration information comprises one or more of a partial sensing cycle gap parameter, a partial sensing active time parameter, or a partial sensing offset parameter (Paragraph [0102] – “[0102] A RX UE may have multiple SL communications with peer TX UEs. When one of these TX UEs extends the active time for a RX UE, the other peer TX UEs are not aware and cannot take advantage that the RX UE is monitoring the SCI/PSCCH (See FIG. 4).” Here the active time parameter has been mentioned. Also fig. 4 shows the cycle gap parameter).
As to claim 56, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The UE of claim 1, wherein the SL DRX configuration information is received from a different UE (Paragraph [0255] – “In this alternative, a transmitting (peer) UE will configure SL DRX operation at a UE. A call flow is shown in FIG. 19, and a description of the steps is provided below. It is assumed that UE 201 has two sidelink communications— one to UE 202 and one to UE 203. A peer UE may enable SL DRX for a UE for any number of reasons. For example, the peer UE may have some DTX limitations, and the peer UE may not transmit sidelink traffic during DTX periods. As a result, the receiving UE does not need to monitor sidelink traffic from the peer UE during these periods.”).
As to claim 57, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses method performed by a user equipment (UE) (UE 201), the method comprising:
determining whether a sidelink (SL) discontinuous reception (DRX) procedure is enabled (Paragraph [0216] – “At step 241, UE 201 may determine that DTX may be used on SL transmissions to UE 202. At step 242, UE 201 may send a request message to UE 202 to enable SL DRX.”); and
receiving, in response to the SL DRX procedure being enabled, SL DRX configuration information (Paragraph [0216] – “At step 244, UE 201, in response to the enabling of step 243, receives a message associated with the request of step 242 (e.g., acknowledging the enablement of SL DRX for UE 202).”).
and receiving a higher layer parameter indicating a priority of a partial sensing procedure being higher than a priority of the SL DRX procedure (Paragraph 168, Fig. 13 – “The SL DRX configuration may provide the details as shown in the Section for SL Configured DRX operation. It is assumed that the there is some network coordination to ensure that the same SL DRX configuration per resource pool is provided in the pre-configured resource pool information, as well as in neighbouring serving cells. Announcing UEs may ensure to only send discovery messages when monitoring UEs are in active mode (during Discovery Windows). As a result, monitoring UEs may stop reception on a resource pool that is in DRX (outside of the Discovery Windows).” Here in DRX off mode, UEs stop reception meaning that the priority of the partial sensing procedure is higher than SL DRX procedure priority, see Fig. 13); and perform, based on the priority of the partial sensing procedure being higher than the priority of the SL DRX procedure, a sensing operation in an on sensing duration of a partial sensing procedure when the on sensing duration is located within an off duration of the SL DRX procedure. (Paragraph [0015] – “The duration of ‘ON time’ within one DRX cycle drx-InactivityTimer Specify how long UE should remain ‘ON’ after the reception of a PDCCH. When this timer is on UE remains in ‘ON state’ which may extend UE ON period into the period which is ‘OFF’ period otherwise.” This can be compared with on sensing duration of a partial sensing procedure. Paragraph [0323] – “the two SL DRX configurations may have different drx-onDurationTimerSL and drx-InactivityTimerSL timers.” This can be treated as one being on while the other is off. The examiner is equating the UE remaining in the “ON state” after reception of PDCCH to the “ON” portion of the claimed partial sensing procedure. This scenario is shown in figure 2 of DiGirolamo. The UE is in the ON state during SFN 0 and SFN 3, due to the PDCCH being ON in subframe zero in each of SFN 0 and SFN3. Figure 2 further shows that onDurationTimer is OFF during subframes 1-4 and 7-9 of SFN0 and also OFF during subframes 2-4 and 7-9 of SFN3. This would be equivalent to subframes 2-4 and 7-9 of SFN 1 of the current application, which applicant stated in the interview was support for the amended claim limitation.)
DI GIROLAMO et al. does not explicitly recite but in an analogous art, Lin et al. (US 20220353815 A1 dated 2020-01-07) discloses wherein the SL DRX configuration information comprises a SL DRX cycle gap parameter, a SL DRX active time parameter, or a SL DRX offset parameter (Paragraph [0059] – “In order to introduce a DRX-like mechanism for SL communication, a V2X UE needs to know when to communicate with the peer UE, i.e., whether the peer UE is in the SL DRX active time.”).
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 the wireless network of DI GIROLAMO et al. to include the means to SL DRX active time configuration as taught by wireless network of Lin et al. in order to know when to communicate with the peer UE.
DI GIROLAMO et al. does not explicitly recite but in an analogous art, Lee et al. (WO 2020032698 A1 date filed 2019-08-09) discloses wherein sensing is enabled during an on sensing duration of the partial sensing procedure based at least in part on the priority of the partial sensing procedure being higher than the priority of the SL DRX procedure (Description on page 14 – “Or, for example, transmission of a message based on resource allocation mode 2 may be set to a relatively high priority.” Here the resource allocation mode 2 procedure is a partial sensing procedure based on “Intelligent Partial-Sensing-Based Autonomous Resource Allocation for NR V2X” located at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10182300, attached here. Description on page 12 - “On the other hand, when the terminal performs different RAT (eg, NR and LTE) based SL communication on different channels, transmission power distribution, synchronization, time synchronization, half-duplex problem, and priority of service An efficient coexistence method may be necessary in consideration of ranking, and / or type of service. In addition, when the terminal performs different RAT (eg, NR and LTE) based SL communication on the same channel, transmission power distribution, synchronization, time synchronization, half-duplex problem, and priority of service. An efficient coexistence method may be necessary in consideration of ranking, and / or type of service. For example, the coexistence may be in-device coexistence. For example, the different channels can be different consecutive channels in the intra-band. For example, different channels may be discontinuous different channels in the intra-band. For example, different channels may be different channels on the inter-band” This paragraph talks about prioritizing different channels and services and some of those channels may be discontinuous (DRX) whereas mode 2 or partial sensing procedure is given high priority.)
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 the wireless network of DI GIROLAMO et al. to include the means to setting up partial sensing procedure with high priority as taught by wireless network of Lee et al. in order to use partial sensing procedure for saving power.
As to claim 59, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses The method of claim 57, wherein the SL DRX configuration information is received from a higher layer (Paragraph [0503] – “The assistance information may comprise: a number of active SL communications for the apparatus, a preferred SL DRX configuration, or an indication that the apparatus is requesting SL DRX for a certain resource pool, frequency, SL BWP, SL service type, cast type, or peer UE. The assistance information and configuration message may be transmitted over a PC5 Radio Resource Control (RRC) message or over a MAC Control Element (CE).” Here MAC is a higher layer as mentioned in the specification.).
As to claim 62, (New) A processor (processor 118) for wireless communication, comprising: at least one controller coupled with at least one memory (non-removable memory 130, removable memory 132) and operable to cause the processor to: determine whether a sidelink (SL) discontinuous reception (DRX) procedure is enabled (Paragraph [0216] – “At step 241, UE 201 may determine that DTX may be used on SL transmissions to UE 202. At step 242, UE 201 may send a request message to UE 202 to enable SL DRX.”);
receive, in response to the SL DRX procedure being enabled, SL DRX configuration information (Paragraph [0216] – “At step 244, UE 201, in response to the enabling of step 243, receives a message associated with the request of step 242 (e.g., acknowledging the enablement of SL DRX for UE 202).”);
receive a higher layer parameter indicating a priority of a partial sensing procedure being higher than a priority of the SL DRX procedure (Paragraph 168, Fig. 13 – “The SL DRX configuration may provide the details as shown in the Section for SL Configured DRX operation. It is assumed that the there is some network coordination to ensure that the same SL DRX configuration per resource pool is provided in the pre-configured resource pool information, as well as in neighbouring serving cells. Announcing UEs may ensure to only send discovery messages when monitoring UEs are in active mode (during Discovery Windows). As a result, monitoring UEs may stop reception on a resource pool that is in DRX (outside of the Discovery Windows).” Here in DRX off mode, UEs stop reception meaning that the priority of the partial sensing procedure is higher than SL DRX procedure priority, see Fig. 13); and perform, based on the priority of the partial sensing procedure being higher than the priority of the SL DRX procedure, a sensing operation in an on sensing duration of the partial sensing procedure when the on sensing duration is located within an off duration of the SL DRX procedure (Paragraph [0015] – “The duration of ‘ON time’ within one DRX cycle drx-InactivityTimer Specify how long UE should remain ‘ON’ after the reception of a PDCCH. When this timer is on UE remains in ‘ON state’ which may extend UE ON period into the period which is ‘OFF’ period otherwise.” This can be compared with on sensing duration of a partial sensing procedure. Paragraph [0323] – “the two SL DRX configurations may have different drx-onDurationTimerSL and drx-InactivityTimerSL timers.” This can be treated as one being on while the other is off. The examiner is equating the UE remaining in the “ON state” after reception of PDCCH to the “ON” portion of the claimed partial sensing procedure. This scenario is shown in figure 2 of DiGirolamo. The UE is in the ON state during SFN 0 and SFN 3, due to the PDCCH being ON in subframe zero in each of SFN 0 and SFN3. Figure 2 further shows that onDurationTimer is OFF during subframes 1-4 and 7-9 of SFN0 and also OFF during subframes 2-4 and 7-9 of SFN3. This would be equivalent to subframes 2-4 and 7-9 of SFN 1 of the current application, which applicant stated in the interview was support for the amended claim limitation.).
DI GIROLAMO et al. does not explicitly recite but in an analogous art, Lin et al. (US 20220353815 A1 dated 2020-01-07) discloses wherein the SL DRX configuration information comprises a SL DRX cycle gap parameter, a SL DRX active time parameter, or a SL DRX offset parameter (Paragraph [0059] – “In order to introduce a DRX-like mechanism for SL communication, a V2X UE needs to know when to communicate with the peer UE, i.e., whether the peer UE is in the SL DRX active time.”).
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 the wireless network of DI GIROLAMO et al. to include the means to SL DRX active time configuration as taught by wireless network of Lin et al. in order to know when to communicate with the peer UE.
DI GIROLAMO et al. does not explicitly recite but in an analogous art, Lee et al. (WO 2020032698 A1 date filed 2019-08-09) discloses wherein sensing is enabled during an on sensing duration of the partial sensing procedure based at least in part on the priority of the partial sensing procedure being higher than the priority of the SL DRX procedure (Description on page 14 – “Or, for example, transmission of a message based on resource allocation mode 2 may be set to a relatively high priority.” Here the resource allocation mode 2 procedure is a partial sensing procedure based on “Intelligent Partial-Sensing-Based Autonomous Resource Allocation for NR V2X” located at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10182300, attached here. Description on page 12 - “On the other hand, when the terminal performs different RAT (eg, NR and LTE) based SL communication on different channels, transmission power distribution, synchronization, time synchronization, half-duplex problem, and priority of service An efficient coexistence method may be necessary in consideration of ranking, and / or type of service. In addition, when the terminal performs different RAT (eg, NR and LTE) based SL communication on the same channel, transmission power distribution, synchronization, time synchronization, half-duplex problem, and priority of service. An efficient coexistence method may be necessary in consideration of ranking, and / or type of service. For example, the coexistence may be in-device coexistence. For example, the different channels can be different consecutive channels in the intra-band. For example, different channels may be discontinuous different channels in the intra-band. For example, different channels may be different channels on the inter-band” This paragraph talks about prioritizing different channels and services and some of those channels may be discontinuous (DRX) whereas mode 2 or partial sensing procedure is given high priority.)
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 the wireless network of DI GIROLAMO et al. to include the means to setting up partial sensing procedure with high priority as taught by wireless network of Lee et al. in order to use partial sensing procedure for saving power.
As to claim 63, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses (New) The method of claim 57, wherein the SL DRX configuration information is determined based on a priority of predicted reception traffic (Paragraph [304] – “The SL DRX configurations may have an associated priority value (drx-PrioritySL). The SL DRX configuration may be based on the traffic type. For example, drx-PrioritySL may be equivalent to the priority of the traffic with the highest priority carried in all the SL communications impacted by the SL DRX configuration.”).
As to claim 64, DI GIROLAMO et al. (US 20230014303 A1 dated 20191213) discloses (New) The method of claim 57, wherein the SL DRX configuration information is determined based on a default priority of the SL DRX procedure (Paragraph [0027] – “The following parameters are used for the calculation of PF and i_s above: [0028] T: DRX cycle of the UE (T is determined by the shortest of the UE specific DRX value(s), if configured by RRC or upper layers, and a default DRX value broadcast in system information. If UE specific DRX is not configured by RRC or by upper layers, the default value is applied)”).
Remarks/Arguments
All the remarks and arguments posted on 02/09/2026 have been reviewed.
In response to the amendment, “wherein sensing is enabled during an on sensing duration of the partial sensing procedure based at least in part on the priority of the partial sensing procedure being higher than the priority of the SL DRX procedure”, a prior art, Lee et al. (WO 2020032698 A1 date filed 2019-08-09) has been added to reject the amended portion. The details are given above under the respective claims.
In response to Applicant’s arguments, “Though Di Girolamo discusses priority levels of SL DRX configurations which Applicant does not concede to be the same as "a priority of a partial sensing procedure" or "a priority of the SL DRX procedure," as recited in amended independent claim 1”, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. Di Girolamo et al. discloses in paragraph [0304], “In such cases, the UE may prioritize certain SL DRX configurations over others. The de-prioritized SL DRX configurations may be disabled. The SL DRX configurations may have an associated priority value (drx-PrioritySL).” Di Girolamo et al. discloses in paragraph [0112], “determining the SL communications that are impacted by the SL DRX configuration; informing the peer UEs impacted by the SL DRX configuration; performing SL DRX operation according to the SL DRX configuration.” Di Girolamo et al. discloses in paragraph [0114], “The term Sidelink DRX Configuration may be used to refer to the parameters associated with a Sidelink DRX group that controls the Sidelink DRX operation.” Here SL DRX configuration priority has a direct impact on SL DRX operation/procedure. The higher priority SL DRX configuration performs the higher priority SL DRX operation/procedure.
Conclusion
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 extension fee 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABDULLAH AL MAMUN whose telephone number is (703)756-1273. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew Anderson can be reached on (571)272-4177. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ABDULLAH AL MAMUN/
/MATTHEW D. ANDERSON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2646