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 .
Continued Examination
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 February 04, 2026 has been entered.
This Office Action is in response to RCE filed on February 04, 2026 and wherein claims 20, 28, 31 and 36-37 being amended, claims 21, 26, 27 and 32 being cancelled.
In virtue of this communication, claims 20, 22-25, 28-31 and 33-39 are currently pending in this Office Action.
The Office appreciates the explanation of the amendment and analyses of the prior arts, and however, although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993) and MPEP 2145.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, Pages 11-17, filed on February 04, 2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 20, 28, 31,37 under 35 USC §103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Chen.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
Claims 20, 22-25, 31, 33-36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 20 recite “… and sending, to the network device on a first SR resource, an SR in response to the first SR configuration information comprises first preset SR configuration information … ”. It is unclear what comprises “first preset SR configuration information indicating the first SR resource.” It could be “sending, ..., an SR in response to the first SR configuration information, which comprises first preset, …” OR “sending, ..., comprises first preset,” OR any other intended interpretation.
Regarding Claims 22-23, 24- 25 fail to remedy the deficiencies of the Claim 20 and therefore, are rejected.
Claims 31 have similar issues as analyzed in Claim 20. Thus, are rejected.
Regarding Claims 33-36 fail to remedy the deficiencies of the Claim 28 and therefore, are rejected.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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.
Claims 20, 22-25, 28-31,33-39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chen et al. (US 20220007230 A1, hereinafter Chen) in view of Lee et al. (US 20220095366 A1, hereinafter Lee) and in view of TS_138_331 (ETS TS 138 331 V15.8.0, hereinafter TS_138_331).
Claim 20: Chen teaches a method implemented by a transmission user equipment (Fig. 1, element 116, 122, Fig. 3), wherein the method comprises:
receiving, from a network device, first scheduling request (SR) configuration information ([0005], “the UE is allocated with multiple SR (Scheduling Request) configurations by a network node”, [0190], “Multiple SR configurations can be configured to the UE and which SR configuration is used depends on the LCH that triggers the SR”, [0192], “Network provides multiple SR configurations to UE”);
and sending, to the network device on a first SR resource, an SR in response to the first SR configuration information comprises first preset SR configuration information indicating the first SR resource ([0005], “the UE transmitting the SR based on a first SR configuration of the multiple SR configurations, wherein the first SR configuration is associated with a highest priority logical channel having data available for transmission when the MAC control element is triggered”, [0199], “SR configuration includes logical channel (group) identity, the data belonging to certain logical channel (group) arrives may trigger BSR and may also trigger corresponding SR based on SR configuration”, [0075], “Scheduling Request (SR) procedure and Buffer Status Report (BSR) procedure are designed for UE to request uplink resource. On the other hand, Sidelink Buffer Status Report procedure is designed for UE to request dedicated sidelink resource. Since Sidelink BSR or BSR shall be transmitted to base station, the UE will trigger SR to request uplink resource for transmitting Sidelink BSR or BSR if needed.”), wherein the first preset SR configuration information is SR configuration information of a sidelink (SL) signaling radio bearer (SRB) ([0263], “Network configures the association between sidelink
BSR and SR configuration … the network could provide numerology and/or TTI information to a service ”, [0184], “Which numerologies and/or TTI durations a logical channel of a radio bearer is mapped to can be configured and reconfigured via RRC signalling”, [0259], “the UE triggers SR transmission according to SR configuration associated with default or access numerology when SR is triggered due to sidelink
BSR”, [0147], “The Sidelink BSR MAC control elements are identified by MAC PDU subheaders with LCIDs”, [0223-0230], disclose New MAC Control Element to trig SR, which containing Radio bearer identity, Logical channel identity, Beam information and etc, [0181-0182], teaches the SR and BSR related RRC configurations are described in 3GPP TS 36.331, and The IE MAC-MainConfig is used to specify the MAC main configuration for signaling and data radio bearers, [0091], “For the Buffer Status reporting procedure, the MAC entity shall consider all radio bearers which are not suspended and may consider radio bearers which are suspended”) that is specified in a protocol.
and buffering one or more to-be-transmitted messages to be sent to at least one reception user equipment ([0091], “The Buffer Status reporting procedure is used to provide the serving eNB with information about the amount of data available for transmission in the UL buffers associated with the MAC entity”), wherein the to-be-transmitted messages have the first preset SR configuration information ([0284], “Trigger
SR based on buffer status … The UE possibly trigger SR transmission based on current which logical channel(s) having data. More specifically, the UE would trigger SR
transmission according to SR configuration associated with the TTI and/or numerology of the highest priority logical channel within all (sidelink) logical channels having data”, [0259], “the UE triggers SR transmission according to SR configuration associated with default or access numerology when SR is triggered due to sidelink BSR”, [0147], “Sidelink BSR and Truncated Sidelink BSR MAC control elements consist of one Destination Index field, one LCG ID field and one corresponding Buffer Size field per reported target group”, [0192-0196], teach multiple SR configurations including Logical channel identity, Logical channel group identity, numerology index, maximum TTI threshold and etc.).
However, Chen does not explicitly teach that SRB is specified in a protocol;
wherein the one or more to-be-transmitted messages comprise at least one of a PC5 Radio Resource Control (PC5-RRC) message, an unprotected PC5 signaling (PC5-S) message, a PC5-S message establishing PC5-S security, or a protected PC5-S message.
Lee, from the same or similar field of endeavor, teaches wherein the one or more to-be-transmitted messages comprise at least one of a PC5 Radio Resource Control (PC5-RRC) message, an unprotected PC5 signaling (PC5-S) message, a PC5-S message establishing PC5-S security, or a protected PC5-S message (Fig. 14, element 1411, [0190], “The
sidelink transmissions may correspond to one or more PC5 RRC connections or one or more PC5-S unicast links. The SL BSR configuration (i.e., the configuration for SL-BSR) may indicate that the sidelink channel quality report is enabled”, [0205], “the value of the LCG ID field or the Buffer Size field may indicate the number of the destinations and/or the PC5-RRC connections in which SL CSI reporting has been triggered”, [0161], “The
Sidelink Buffer Status Report may indicate at least a Destination index, a LCG, and/or a buffer size corresponding to the destination”).
Chen and Lee are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of wireless communication. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the system of Chen and the features of adding PC5 message into to-be-transmitted messages as taught by Lee, for the benefit of allowing UE to select SR configuration among multiple SR configurations based on priority, giving UE may have different priorities for PC5-S signaling (and/or RRC messages) depending on whether PC5-RRC connection or PC5-S unicast link is established or no (paragraph [0511]).
TS_138_331, from the same or similar field of endeavor, teaches SRB is specified in a protocol (Page 251, section LogicalChannelIdentify , “The IE LogicalChannelIdentity is used to identify one logical channel (LogicalChannelConfig) and the corresponding RLC bearer (RLC-BearerConfig)”, Page 338, section RLC-BearConfig, “The IE RLC-BearerConfig is used to configure an RLC entity, a corresponding logical channel in MAC and the linking to a PDCP entity (served radio bearer).”, Page 25, “consider the term 'radio bearer' (RB) to cover SRBs and DRBs”, Page 51, section 5.3.5.5.4, “configure this MAC entity with a logical channel in accordance to the default configuration defined in 9.2 for the corresponding SRB”).
Chen and TS_138_331 are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of wireless communication. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to understand the Radio bearer identity, Logical channel identity as taught by Chen are specified in the standard 3GPP_TS_138_331.
Claim 28 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 1 and Chen further teaches a network device (Fig. 2, [0007], “FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a transmitter system (also known as access network) and a receiver system (also known as user equipment or UE)”, [0057], “An access network (AN) may be a fixed station or base station used for communicating with the terminals and may also be referred to as an access point, a Node B, a base station” ).
Claim 31 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 1 and Chen further teaches a memory configured to store instructions (Fig.3, elements 310, 312); and a processor (Fig.3, elements 308) coupled to the memory and configured to execute the instructions ([0068], “The control circuit 306 executes the program code 312 in the memory 310 through the CPU 308, thereby controlling an operation of the communications device 300”).
Claim 37 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 1 and Chen further teaches a communications apparatus (Fig. 1, Fig.3, [0068], “As shown in FIG. 3, the communication device 300 in a wireless communication system can be utilized for realizing the UEs (or ATs) 116 and 122 in FIG. 1 or the base station (or AN) 100 in FIG. 1”) comprising: a memory configured to store instructions (Fig.3, elements 310, 312); and a processor (Fig.3, elements 308) coupled to the memory (Fig.3, elements 310) and configured to execute the instructions to cause the network device to ([0068], “The control circuit 306 executes the program code 312 in the memory 310 through the CPU 308, thereby controlling an operation of the communications device 300”).
Claim 22: Chen teaches the method of claim 20, wherein the first SR configuration information comprises one or more SR identifiers IDs ([0149], “LCG ID: The Logical Channel Group ID field identifies the group of logical channel(s) which buffer status is being reported”, [0192-0196], teach multiple SR configurations including Logical channel identity, Logical channel group identity).
Claim 29 is analyzed and rejected according claim 28 and claim 22.
Claim 33 is analyzed and rejected according claim 31 and claim 22.
Claim 38 is analyzed and rejected according claim 37 and claim 22.
Claim 23: Chen teaches the method of claim 22, wherein the first preset SR configuration information is received in a dedicated configuration of an SL control channel SCCH (Chen, [0414], “The association could be configured by network (e.g. base station). The association could be provided in service configuration (e.g. sidelink configuration), control channel configuration (e.g. include control element identity in control channel configuration)”. [0481], “UE will monitor PDCCH(s) which can schedule sidelink
resource. And which PDCCH can be used to schedule sidelink resource may be decided by sidelink related configuration”).
Claim 34 is analyzed and rejected according claim 33 and claim 23.
Claim 24: Chen teaches the method of claim 20, wherein the first preset SR configuration information comprises one or more preset SR identifiers IDs (([0149], “LCG ID: The Logical Channel Group ID field identifies the group of logical channel(s) which buffer status is being reported”, [0192-0196], teach multiple SR configurations including Logical channel identity, Logical channel group identity, numerology index, maximum TTI threshold, specific TTI length/duration (range)).
Claim 30 is analyzed and rejected according claim 28 and claim 24.
Claim 35 is analyzed and rejected according claim 31 and claim 24.
Claim 39 is analyzed and rejected according claim 37 and claim 24.
Claim 25: Chen teaches the method of claim 20, wherein the first SR configuration information is of at least one SRB between the transmission user equipment and the network device, at least one data radio bearer (DRB) between the transmission user equipment and the network device ([0184], “Which numerologies and/or TTI durations a logical channel of a radio bearer is mapped to can be configured and reconfigured via RRC signalling”, [0091], “The Buffer Status reporting procedure is used to provide the serving eNB with information about the amount of data available for transmission in the UL buffers
associated with the MAC entity … the MAC entity shall consider all radio bearers which are not suspended and may consider radio bearers which are suspended” ), at least one SL DRB of the transmission user equipment (alternative); or at least one SL channel state information (CSI) report of the transmission user equipment (alternative).
Claim 36 is analyzed and rejected according claim 31 and claim 25.
Claim 32: Chen teaches the communications apparatus of claim 31, wherein the processor is further configured to execute the instructions to cause the user equipment to initiate a random- access procedure to the network device when the first SR configuration information does not comprise or is not the first preset SR configuration information ([0078], “ if the MAC entity has no valid PUCCH resource for SR configured in any TTI and if rach-Skip for the MCG MAC entity or rach-SkipSCG for the SCG MAC entity is not configured:
initiate a Random Access procedure”).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YONGHONG ZHAO whose telephone number is (571)272-4089. The examiner can normally be reached Monday -Friday 9:00 am - 5:00pm.
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/Y.Z./Examiner, Art Unit 2472
/NICHOLAS A JENSEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2472