DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to claims filed on 16 April 2026.
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 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 16 April 2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Claims 15-34 were pending in the Final Rejection of 20 January 2026.
Claims 16, 20, 26, and 30 were canceled and claims 15, 17-18, 21, 23-25, 27-28, 31, and 33-34 were amended in amendments filed on 16 April 2026.
Claims 15, 17-19, 21-25, 27-29, and 31-34 remain pending for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 16 April 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant has not pointed out where the new (or amended) claim is supported, nor does there appear to be a written description of the claim limitation “wherein the second set of one or more SIBs comprises at least one additional SIB that was not included in the first set of one or more SIBs indicated by the first request” in the application as filed.
In response to Applicant’s argument on page 6 of Applicant Remarks that, in substance, the prior art of record, particularly Lin et al. (US 2022/0095411, hereinafter Lin), does not disclose a first wireless transmit receive unit (WTRU) receiving a response to a second request including a second set of one or more System Information Blocks (SIBs) including a SIB what was not included in a received first set of one or more SIBs indicated by a first request, Examiner respectfully disagrees.
In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Here, the Final Rejection, at pages 17-18, provides a prior art rejection of claim 18, wherein, although Lin as modified by Tenny et al. (US 2022/0086931) may not explicitly disclose sending a request for a SIB that was not previously requested, Lee et al. (US 2019/0150071, hereinafter Lee), at Figs. 10, 14 and ¶¶ 119-121 and 150-152, discloses User Equipment (UE) entering a new area, requesting essential System Information (SI), receiving the SI, determining that an essential SIB is missing, and specifically requesting the essential SIB, such as when the UE detects a change in its area. Thus, a combined reading of at least Lin and Lee provides a remote UE establishing a connection with a relay UE, requesting SI, including a set of one or more SIBs, receiving the set of one or more SIBs, detect a change in its area, determine that another SIB is needed based on the detected change, request the needed SIB, and receive the needed SIB, all while the remote UE remains in an idle or inactive state, which appears to be within the scope of the independent claims as they are currently pending, as further detailed in the prior art rejection provided below.
Thus, the prior art of record still appears to disclose matter within the scope of the claims as they are currently written.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 15, 17-19, 21-25, 27-29, and 31-34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Regarding Claim 15, “wherein the second set of one or more SIBs comprises at least one additional SIB that was not included in the first set of one or more SIBs indicated by the first request” appears to lack written description support in the original disclosure, specifically an additional SIB not included in a first set of one or more SIBs.
Regarding Claims 17-19 and 21-24, by depending on claim 15, claims 17-19 and 21-24 inherit the deficiencies of claim 15.
Regarding Claims 25, 27-29, and 31-34, though of varying scope, the limitations of claims 25, 27-29, and 31-34, are substantially similar or identical to those of claims 15, 17-19 and 21-24, and are rejected under the same reasoning.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 15, 17-18, 23-25, 17-28, and 33-34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lin et al. (US 2022/0095411, previously cited, hereinafter Lin) in view of Lee et al. (US 2019/0150071, previously cited, hereinafter Lee).
Regarding Claim 15, Lin discloses a first Wireless Transmit/Receive Unit (WTRU) comprising:
a processor (Fig. 4B and ¶¶ 144-146 disclose remote and relay user equipment (UEs) each including processors, the UE implementing and being configured to perform the disclosed embodiments of the rest of the disclosure) configured to:
establish a sidelink (SL) connection with a second WTRU (Figs. 4C, 4D, 5, and ¶¶ 147-148 disclose the remote UE having an SL bearer/PC5 RLC channel established upon confirmation of permission to perform SL relay between the remote UE and the relay UE — an SL connection is established upon authorization for the relay UE to perform relaying);
send a first request for a first set of one or more system information blocks (SIBs) to the second WTRU (Figs. 4C, 4D, 5, and ¶¶ 147-148 and 157-159 disclose the remote UE, in an idle/inactive state, informing the relay UE of a requested SIB via PC5 signaling (“on a requested SIB” appears to be a typographical error), such as a PC5-RRC message);
receive a first response in a first PC5-radio resource control (RRC) message from the second WTRU (Figs. 4C, 4D, 5, ¶¶ 147, and 154-160 disclose the idle/inactive remote UE receiving a response to the request in an PC5-RRC message, such as RRCReconfigurationSidelink), wherein the first response in the first PC5-RRC message comprises the first set of one or more SIBs (Figs. 4C, 5 and ¶¶ 147, 154-156, and 160 disclose the RRCReconfigurationSidelink as including the requested SIB), wherein the first response is received in the first PC5-RRC message from the second WTRU during operation in accordance with an RRC IDLE or RRC INACTIVE state (Id. further discloses the remote UE as idle/inactive).
Lin may not explicitly disclose wherein the processor is configured to:
send a second request for a second set of one or more SIBs to the second WTRU, wherein the second set of one or more SIBs comprises at least one additional SIB that was not included in the first set of one or more SIBs indicated by the first request; and
receive a second response in a second PC5-RRC message from the second WTRU, wherein the second response in the second PC5-RRC message comprises the second set of one or more SIBs.
Lin may not explicitly disclose:
However, in analogous art, Lee discloses a first WTRU comprising a processor configured to:
send a second request for a second set of one or more SIBs to the second WTRU, wherein the second set of one or more SIBs comprises at least one additional SIB that was not included in the first set of one or more SIBs indicated by the first request (Figs. 10, 14, ¶¶ 119-121 and 150-152 disclose a UE receiving information on an area (i.e., system information), determining that an essential SIB is missing, such as by detecting a change in area, and requesting the missing essential SIB, such as in a Cell Update/Addition request message, wherein the missing essential SIB may be essential SI for the changed area that was not included with the initial SI for the initial area); and
receive a second response in a second PC5-RRC message from the second WTRU, wherein the second response in the second PC5-RRC message comprises the second set of one or more SIBs (Fig. 14 and ¶ 154 disclose the UE receiving a Cell Update/Addition confirmation response message including the requested SI).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Lee to modify Lin in order to have a remote UE recognize that it requires SI that is essential that was not previously requested or provided, such as when the remote UE moves to a new area and requires SI that is essential for the operating in the new area, or when previous SI does not include SI essential for features specific to the remote UE. One would have been motivated to do this, because SI that is provided first may not relate to a particular feature that a remote UE determines it wants to use, or SI may change from one area to the next (Lee ¶¶ 118 and 153).
Regarding Claim 17, Lin-Lee disclose the first WTRU of claim 15.
Lin discloses wherein the first request is sent via a PC5-RRC message when the first WTRU is in the RRC IDLE or RRC INACTIVE state (Fig. 5 and ¶¶ 159-160 disclose the RRC IDLE/INACTIVE remote UE requesting SIB(s) from the relay UE via a PC5-RRC message).
Regarding Claim 18, Lin-Lee disclose the first WTRU of claim 15.
Lin may not explicitly disclose wherein the second request for the second set of one or more SIBs is sent to the second WTRU based on a determination that the first request for the first set of one or more SIBs sent to the second WTRU did not indicate a request for the at least one additional SIB that was not included in the first set of one or more SIBs.
However, in analogous art, Lee discloses wherein the second request for the second set of one or more SIBs is sent to the second WTRU based on a determination that the first request for the first set of one or more SIBs sent to the second WTRU did not indicate a request for the at least one additional SIB that was not included in the first set of one or more SIBs (Figs. 10, 14, ¶¶ 119-121 and 150-153 disclose a UE receiving information on an area (i.e., system information), determining that an essential SIB is missing, such as by detecting a change in area, and requesting the missing essential SIB, such as in a Cell Update/Addition request message, wherein the missing essential SIB may be essential SI for the changed area that was not included with the initial SI for the initial area).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Lee to modify Lin in order to have a remote UE recognize that it requires SI that is essential that was not previously requested or provided, such as when the remote UE moves to a new area and requires SI that is essential for the operating in the new area, or when previous SI does not include SI essential for features specific to the remote UE. One would have been motivated to do this, because SI that is provided first may not relate to a particular feature that a remote UE determines it wants to use, or SI may change from one area to the next (Lee ¶¶ 118 and 153).
Regarding Claim 23, Lin-Lee disclose the first WTRU of claim 15.
Lin discloses wherein the first request is sent via a PC5-RRC message request (Figs. 4C, 4D, 5, and ¶¶ 148, 150, and 157-159 disclose the remote UE transmitting the request in a UE SRB message or a PC5-RRC message, such as an RRCSystemInfoReq message as a type of PC5-RRC message).
Regarding Claim 24, Lin-Lee disclose the first WTRU of claim 15.
Lin discloses wherein the SL connection is based on a connection status of the first WTRU with Uu (Figs. 4C, 5, and ¶¶ 148, 150, and 157-159 disclose the remote UE transmitting the request in a Uu SRB message or a PC5-RRC message, such as an RRCSystemInfoReq message as a type of PC5-RRC message, depending on the RRC connection status of the remote UE — Figs. 4C and 5 illustrate the remote UE as in an RRC-IDLE/INACTIVE state).
Regarding Claims 25, 27-28, and 33-34, though of varying scope, the limitations of claims 25, 27-28, and 33-34 are substantially similar or identical to those of claims 15, 17-18, and 23-24, and are rejected under the same reasoning.
Claims 19 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lin-Lee as applied to claims 15 and 25 above, and further in view of Karabulut et al. (US 9,973,997, previously cited, hereinafter Karabulut).
Regarding Claim 19, Lin-Lee discloses the first WTRU of claim 15.
Lin-Lee may not explicitly disclose wherein the processor is configured to receive an identifier of the second WTRU.
However, in analogous art, Karabulut discloses wherein the processor is configured to receive an identifier of the second WTRU (Figs. 2, 4, 4:22-32, 4:66-5:16 disclose a UE receiving SIBs from one or more relay UEs, each including individual network access data information of the relays from which the SIBs were transmitted; 3:32-47 disclose the network access data information as including a relay network ID (i.e., an identifier of the second WTRU) enabling the UE to select a relay from the plurality of UEs).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Karabulut to modify Lin-Lee in order to enable a requesting remote UE, which receives multiple responses of system information from a plurality of relay UEs, to select a relay from the plurality of relay UEs. One would have been motivated to do this, because allowing a remote UE to select from a plurality of relay UEs may allow the remote UE to select the best relay UE based on the remote UE’s requested service, and/or avoid relay UEs that are already serving other UEs (Karabulut 3:56-67).
Regarding Claim 29, though of a different scope, the limitations of claim 29 are substantially similar or identical to those of claim 19, and is rejected under the same reasoning.
Claims 21 and 31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lin-Lee as applied to claims 15 and 25 above, and further in view of Sheng (US 2018/0095411, previously cited).
Regarding Claim 21, Lin-Lee disclose the first WTRU of claim 15.
Lin-Lee may not explicitly disclose wherein the first set of one or more SIBs received is based on a list of known SIBs associated with the first WTRU.
However, in analogous art, Sheng discloses wherein the first set of one or more SIBs received is based on a list of known SIBs associated with the first WTRU (¶ 290 discloses a remote UE’s (i.e., the first WTRU’s) request for system information as including a list of SIBs suitable for the remote UE and form which a relay UE may select to obtain and include in a response message).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Sheng to modify Lin-Lee in order to have a remote UE’s request for system information to include a list of SIBs suitable for the remote UE that are then obtained and provided to the remote UE by the relay UE.. One would have been motivated to do this, because including a specific list of SIBs ensures that the remote UE obtains system information that is needed by the remote UE (Sheng ¶ 290).
Regarding Claim 31, though of a different scope, the limitations of claim 31 are substantially similar or identical to those of claim 21, and is rejected under the same reasoning.
Claims 22 and 32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lin-Lee as applied to claims 15 and 25 above, and further in view of Ishii (US 2018/0167918, previously cited).
Regarding Claim 22, Lin-Lee disclose the first WTRU of claim 15.
Lin-Lee may not explicitly disclose wherein the processor is configured to receive a system information update from the second WTRU.
However, in analogous art, Ishii discloses wherein the processor is configured to receive a system information update from the second WTRU (Figs. 27-28 and ¶¶ 156-158 disclose a message flow between an access node (i.e., a second WTRU) and a wireless terminal (i.e., the first WTRU), wherein a particular SIB (SIBn) is updated, and the access node automatically transmitting the SIBn in a broadcast which is received by the wireless terminal; Figs. 29-30 and ¶¶ 161-162 disclose where the updated SIBn may or may not be transmitted depending on the updated value tag of the SIBn).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Ishii to modify Lin-Lee in order to provide updated system information to a remote UE if the remote UE actually needs the updated system information. One would have been motivated to do this, because providing a mechanism for determining whether updated system actually needs to be provided to a remote UE allows for the remote UE to be kept current on needed system information while not wasting valuable radio resources where such an update is not necessary, thereby helping the system be efficient (Ishii ¶¶ 6-7).
Regarding Claim 32, though of a different scope, the limitations of claim 32 are substantially similar or identical to those of claim 22, and is rejected under the same reasoning.
Conclusion
A shortened statutory period for reply to this action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. An extension of time may be obtained under 37 CFR 1.136(a). However, in no event, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of the action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THOMAS R CAIRNS whose telephone number is (571)270-0487. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM ET M-F.
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/Thomas R Cairns/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2468
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