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 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12/29/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Claims 1-11 and 13-20 have been amended.
Claims 1-11 and 13-20 are presently pending.
Applicant's arguments with respect to the claim(s) have been considered but are moot in view
of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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.
Claims 1-2, 8-11, 14-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tseng et al. (US 20230066448, hereinafter, “Tseng”) in view of “Remaining Aspects on SL DRX” published on January 2022 by InterDigital, hereinafter, “InterDigital”, provided in the IDS filed on 08/30/2023 by the applicant).
Claim 1. Tseng teaches: A method, comprising: - See Fig. 1, 3
obtaining, by a first device, a discontinuous reception (DRX) configuration - See Fig. 4, ¶ [0009], (“UE to receive at least one SL-Discontinuous Reception (SL-DRX) configuration and a plurality of SL resource pool configurations configured on the first UE”) for physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring, - See Fig. 4, ¶ [0034], (“the UE may be configured with a DRX functionality that controls the UE's Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) monitoring activity.”) including a DRX hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) round trip time (RTT) timer sidelink (SL); - in ¶ [0096], (“If SL-DRX is configured…the RRC entity may control the SL-DRX operation by configuring the following parameters:…¶ [0105] drx-HARQ-RTT-TimerSL_Rx (e.g., for each SL-HARQ reception process in which the UE needs to transmit SL-HARQ feedback information to the associated SL-Tx UE”)
obtaining, by the first device, a sidelink resource pool configuration; - in ¶ [0009], (“UE to receive at least one SL-Discontinuous Reception (SL-DRX) configuration and a plurality of SL resource pool configurations configured on the first UE”) and
starting, by the first device, a timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timerSL, in ¶ [0111], (“when the SL-DRX is configured, the MAC entity may:… 2> start the drx-HARQ-RTT-TimerSL_Tx for the corresponding SL-HARQ process…1> if a drx-HARQ-RTT-TimerSL_Rx expires…3> start the drx-RetransmissionTimerSL_Rx for the corresponding SL- HARQ process”)
wherein the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL is a minimum duration before an SL retransmission grant is expected by the first device, - in ¶ [0106], (“drx-HARQ-RTT-TimerSL_Tx…this may be the minimum duration before an SL-HARQ retransmission grant is expected by the MAC entity.”) and
Tseng does not explicitly teach:
wherein, value 0 is used for the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL in case physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) configuration used for HARQ feedback reporting is not configured and the sidelink resource pool configuration is not configured with a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH).
However, InterDigital teaches:
wherein, value 0 is used for the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL - See pg. 1, Section 2.1, (“20: The value(s) of the SL HARQ RTT Timer, when explicitly configured…is determined by UE or NW implementation…5: When HARQ feedback is disabled, either zero value or non-zero value can be configured for the HARQ RTT timer if the resource assignment information is not present.”) in case physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) configuration used for HARQ feedback reporting is not configured and the sidelink resource pool configuration is not configured with a physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH). - See pg. 2, Section 2.1, (“Proposal 1: For HARQ feedback disabled or PSFCH not configured…Since the retransmission may come in the subsequent slot, and a HARQ RTT timer of zero should be possible…Proposal 2: Two separate HARQ RTT timers are configured and used by the UE for HARQ enabled transmissions versus HARQ disabled/PSFCH not configured.”, HARQ RTT timer can be set to zero when both HARQ is disabled (PUCCH configuration used for HARQ feedback reporting is not configured) and PSFCH is not configured)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Tseng with InterDigital to include value 0 is used for the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL when PUCCH configuration used for HARQ feedback reporting and sidelink resource pool configuration with a PSFCH are not configured, as taught by InterDigital. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to avoid unnecessary deactivation of the HARQ RTT timer, as suggested by InterDigital, While the operation of the HARQ RTT timer is clear for HARQ enabled transmissions, the case of HARQ disabled transmissions (as well as for PSFCH not configured), the starting time has not been discussed. - See pg. 2, lines 3-4
Claim 2. Combination of Tseng and InterDigital teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Tseng teaches:
wherein the sidelink resource pool includes at least one of at least one first resource and at least one second resource, - in ¶ [0172], (“The available SL resources may include all of SL reception resource pools.”) wherein the at least one first resource includes at least one of at least configured grant (CG) type 1 resource and at least one CG type 2 resource, - in ¶ [0231], (“the SL resource pool configurations may include at least one of…an SL resource pool configuration for SL discovery message transmission, an SL dynamic grant (i.e. one or more SL dynamic grants), a Type-1 SL configured grant (i.e. one or more Type-1 SL configured grants), a Type-2 SL configured grant (i.e. one or more Type-2 SL configured grants)”) and wherein the at least one second resource includes at least one dynamic grant (DG) resource. - in ¶ [0231], (“the SL resource pool configurations may include at least one of…an SL resource pool configuration for SL discovery message transmission, an SL dynamic grant (i.e. one or more SL dynamic grants)”)
Claim 8. Combination of Tseng and InterDigital teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Tseng teaches:
further comprising: starting a DRX retransmission timer after an expiry of the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL, - in ¶ [0111], (“1> if a drx-HARQ-RTT-TimerSL_Rx expires:…3> start the drx-RetransmissionTimerSL_Rx for the corresponding SL-HARQ process in the first symbol after the expiry of drx-HARQ-RTT-TimerSL_Rx. 1>”) wherein the DRX configuration further includes information related to a DRX retransmission timer, - in ¶ [0096], (“If SL-DRX is configured…the RRC entity may control the SL-DRX operation by configuring the following parameters:…¶ [0100] drx-RetransmissionTimerSL_Rx”) and wherein the DRX retransmission timer is a maximum duration until the SL retransmission grant is received. - in ¶ [0100], (“drx-RetransmissionTimerSL_Rx…this may be the maximum duration until an SL retransmission is received;”)
Claim 9. Combination of Tseng and InterDigital teaches The method of claim 8, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Tseng teaches:
wherein the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL and the DRX retransmission timer are timers configured per HARQ process. - in ¶ [0105 - 0106], (“drx-RetransmissionTimerSL_Rx (e.g., for each SL-HARQ reception process in which the UE needs to transmit SL-HARQ feedback information…drx-HARQ-RTT-TimerSL_Tx (e.g., per SL-HARQ transmission process in which the UE needs to re-transmit…”)
Claim 10. Combination of Tseng and InterDigital teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Tseng teaches:
wherein the SL retransmission grant is received on a PDCCH – in ¶ [0106], (“drx-RetransmissionTimerSL_Rx (e.g., for each SL-HARQ reception process in which the UE needs to transmit SL-HARQ feedback information to the associated SL-Tx UE): this may be the maximum duration until an SL retransmission is received… SL-HARQ retransmission grant is expected by the MAC entity.”); ¶ [0034], (“the UE may be configured with a DRX functionality that controls the UE's Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) monitoring activity.”) and wherein the SL retransmission grant is used to determine one or more SL resources for retransmission. – in ¶ [0106], (“drx-RetransmissionTimerSL_Rx…this may be the maximum duration until an SL retransmission is received… SL-HARQ retransmission grant is expected by the MAC entity.”); ¶ [0080], (“The UE may request SL resources from the eNB…The eNB schedules dedicated SL resource for the UE to transmit SCI and SL data.”)
Claim 11. Combination of Tseng and InterDigital teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
InterDigital further teaches:
wherein, based on that the PUCCH configuration is not configured, the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL is started. - See pg. 2, Section 2.1, (“Proposal 1: For HARQ feedback disabled or PSFCH not configured, the RX UE starts the HARQ RTT timer upon reception of SCI.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Tseng with InterDigital to include the HARQ RTT timer is started based on the PUCCH configuration not being configured, as taught by InterDigital. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to avoid unnecessary deactivation of the HARQ RTT timer, as suggested by InterDigital, While the operation of the HARQ RTT timer is clear for HARQ enabled transmissions, the case of HARQ disabled transmissions (as well as for PSFCH not configured), the starting time has not been discussed. - See pg. 2
Claim 14 is the apparatus claim corresponding to the method claim of Claim 1 and is rejected under the same rationale as Claim 1 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claim 15 is rejected under the same rationale as Claim 14 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claim 16 is rejected under the same rationale as Claim 2 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Claims 3-7, 13, 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tseng et al. (US 20230066448, hereinafter, “Tseng”) in view of “Remaining Aspects on SL DRX” published on January 2022 by InterDigital, hereinafter, “InterDigital”, provided in the IDS filed on 08/30/2023 by the applicant), and further in view of Freda et al. (US 20240163962, hereinafter, “Freda”).
Claim 3. Combination of Tseng and InterDigital teaches The method of claim 2, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Tseng teaches:
further comprising: receiving an SL grant for determining one or more SL resources through a PDCCH, - in ¶ [0176], (“the UE may still monitor the PDCCHs (or search spaces/CORESETs configured for SL configured grant(s) (de) activations) (e.g., for SL configured grant activation/de-activation from the serving RAN) during the (SL-DRX) Active Time”)
Tseng does not explicitly teach:
wherein, based on that the PUCCH configuration is not configured, the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL is started after the one or more SL resources.
However, Freda teaches:
wherein, based on that the PUCCH configuration is not configured, - in ¶ [0132], (“For HARQ disabled transmissions, the RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may not transmit HARQ feedback on PSFCH.”) the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL is started after the one or more SL resources.– See Fig. 4, ¶ [0138], (“A RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may start a HARQ RTT timer at some time instant (e.g., the slot following, or a number of specified slots following) relative to any of: [0139] the reception of SCI and/or data for that HARQ process…[0146] directly start the retransmission timer for the HARQ process.”); ¶ [0131], (“a single SCI may indicate resources for an additional transmission and/or further retransmissions for the HARQ process”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Tseng and InterDigital with Freda to include based on the PUCCH configuration is not configured, the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL is started after the one or more SL resources, as taught by Freda. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in reliable transmission by ensuring proper HARQ RTT timer operation, as suggested by Freda, in sidelink, In SL communication, there are a number of differences with Uu scheduling which may create problems with the approach of DRX concept…the WTRU may not (e.g., always) transmit PSFCH for different reasons (for example, HARQ disable. - ¶ [0130]
Claim 4. Combination of Tseng, InterDigital, and Freda teaches The method of claim 3, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Freda further teaches:
wherein, based on that (i) the PUCCH configuration is not configured, - in ¶ [0132], (“For HARQ disabled transmissions, the RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may not transmit HARQ feedback on PSFCH.”, Since HARQ is disabled, no uplink channel is used (eq. PUCCH configuration is not configured)) and (ii) the one or more SL resources are determined, - in ¶ [0131], (“Specifically, in SL, a single SCI may indicate resources for an additional transmission and/or further retransmissions for the HARQ process, where the transmission and/or the retransmissions can be non-contiguous in time.”) the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL is started after the one or more SL resources. - in ¶ [0138], (“A RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may start a HARQ RTT timer…relative to any of: [0139] the reception of SCI and/or data for that HARQ process…[0144] a (pre)configured or pre-define time following the reception of SCI”); ¶ [0131], (“a single SCI may indicate resources for an additional transmission and/or further retransmissions for the HARQ process”, SCI determines one or more SL resources and the timer is started following reception of SCI.)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Tseng and InterDigital with Freda to include based on the PUCCH configuration is not configured, and the one or more SL resources are determined, the timer is started after the one or more SL resources, as taught by Freda. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in reliable transmission by ensuring proper HARQ RTT timer operation, as suggested by Freda, a number of differences with Uu scheduling which may create problems with the approach of DRX concept…the WTRU may not (e.g., always) transmit PSFCH for different reasons (for example, HARQ disable. - ¶ [0130]
Claim 5. Combination of Tseng, InterDigital, and Freda teaches The method of claim 3, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Freda further teaches:
wherein, based on that the PUCCH configuration is not configured, - in ¶ [0132], (“For HARQ disabled transmissions, the RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may not transmit HARQ feedback on PSFCH.”, Since HARQ is disabled, no uplink channel is used (eq. PUCCH configuration is not configured)) the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL is started after a last SL resource – See Fig. 4, ¶ [0138], (“A RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may start a HARQ RTT timer at some time instant (e.g., the slot following, or a number of specified slots following) relative to any of: [0139] the reception of SCI and/or data for that HARQ process…[0146] directly start the retransmission timer for the HARQ process.”); ¶ [0132 - 0133], (“For HARQ disabled transmissions, the RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may not transmit HARQ feedback on PSFCH….HARQ RTT may be started in the symbol/slot at the end of the transmission”) among the one or more SL resources. - in ¶ [0131], (“a single SCI may indicate resources for an additional transmission and/or further retransmissions for the HARQ process”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Tseng and InterDigital with Freda to include based on the PUCCH configuration is not configured, the timer is started after a last SL resource among the one or more SL resources, as taught by Freda. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in reliable transmission by ensuring proper HARQ RTT timer operation, as suggested by Freda, there are a number of differences with Uu scheduling which may create problems with the approach of DRX concept…the WTRU may not (e.g., always) transmit PSFCH for different reasons (for example, HARQ disable. - ¶ [0130]
Claim 6. Combination of Tseng, InterDigital, and Freda teaches The method of claim 5, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Freda further teaches:
wherein, based on that the PUCCH configuration is not configured, - in ¶ [0132], (“For HARQ disabled transmissions, the RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may not transmit HARQ feedback on PSFCH.”, Since HARQ is disabled, no uplink channel is used (eq. PUCCH configuration is not configured)) the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL is started on a first symbol after the end of the last SL resource – See Fig. 4, ¶ [0138], (“A RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may start a HARQ RTT timer at some time instant (e.g., the slot following, or a number of specified slots following) relative to any of: [0139] the reception of SCI and/or data for that HARQ process…[0146] directly start the retransmission timer for the HARQ process.”); ¶ [0132 - 0133], (“For HARQ disabled transmissions, the RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may not transmit HARQ feedback on PSFCH….HARQ RTT may be started in the symbol/slot at the end of the transmission”) among the one or more SL resources. - in ¶ [0131], (“a single SCI may indicate resources for an additional transmission and/or further retransmissions for the HARQ process”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Tseng and InterDigital with Freda to include based on that the PUCCH configuration is not configured, the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL is started on a first symbol after the end of the last SL resource among the one or more SL resources, as taught by Freda. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in reliable transmission by ensuring proper timer operation, as suggested by Freda, a number of differences with Uu scheduling which may create problems with the approach of DRX concept…the WTRU may not (e.g., always) transmit PSFCH for different reasons (for example, HARQ disable. - ¶ [0130]
Claim 7. Combination of Tseng and InterDigital teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Freda further teaches:
wherein, based on that the PUCCH configuration is not configured, - in ¶ [0132], (“For HARQ disabled transmissions, the RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may not transmit HARQ feedback on PSFCH.”, Since HARQ is disabled, no uplink channel is used (eq. PUCCH configuration is not configured)) the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT timer SL is started after a first resource among the one or more SL resources. - in ¶ [0160], (“If HARQ is disabled, the (e.g., RX) WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may start the HARQ RTT timer at the first symbol/slot following reception of the SCI or at the first symbol/slot following reception of the PSSCH corresponding to the received PDU for that HARQ process.”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Tseng and InterDigital with Freda to include based on that the PUCCH configuration is not configured, the timer is started after a first resource among the one or more SL resources, as taught by Freda. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in reliable transmission by ensuring proper timer operation, as suggested by Freda, The TX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may use a related (but different) value of such timers to compensate for the delay in performing transmission, and/or performing reliable transmission…the TX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may be configured with…a HARQ RTT timer. - ¶ [0639 - 0640]
Claim 13. Combination of Tseng and InterDigital teaches The method of claim 1, - refer to the indicated claim for reference(s).
Tseng teaches:
further comprising: receiving an SL grant for determining one or more SL resources through a PDCCH; - in ¶ [0176], (“the UE may still monitor the PDCCHs (or search spaces/CORESETs configured for SL configured grant(s) (de) activations) (e.g., for SL configured grant activation/de-activation from the serving RAN) during the (SL-DRX) Active Time”)
Freda further teaches:
wherein, based on that (i) the physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) configuration is not configured, and (ii) the sidelink resource pool is not configured for the physical sidelink feedback channel (PSFCH), - in ¶ [0130], (“in sidelink, the WTRU may not (e.g., always) transmit PSFCH for different reasons (for example, HARQ disable”) and (iii) the one or more SL resources are determined, the timer based on the DRX HARQ RTT SL timer is started. - in ¶ [0138], (“A RX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may start a HARQ RTT timer…relative to any of: [0139] the reception of SCI and/or data for that HARQ process…[0144] a (pre)configured or pre-define time following the reception of SCI”); ¶ [0131], (“a single SCI may indicate resources for an additional transmission and/or further retransmissions for the HARQ process”, SCI determines one or more SL resources and the timer is started following reception of SCI.); ¶ [0387], (“the TX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may compute a component of the HARQ RTT based on the value of PSFCH to PUCCH delay provided by the network…Otherwise, the TX WTRU (e.g., WTRU 102) may compute the HARQ RTT to be any of the following:…A default value (e.g., 0).”)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Tseng and InterDigital with Freda to include based on that the PUCCH configuration is not configured, the sidelink resource pool is not configured for the PSFCH, and the one or more SL resources are determined, the timer is started, as taught by Freda. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification to result in reliable transmission by ensuring proper HARQ RTT timer operation, as suggested by Freda, in sidelink, In SL communication, there are a number of differences with Uu scheduling which may create problems with the approach of DRX concept…the WTRU may not (e.g., always) transmit PSFCH for different reasons (for example, HARQ disable. - ¶ [0130]
Claims 17-20 are rejected under the same rationale as Claims 3-6 since they recite nearly identical limitations.
Conclusion
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/SHIMA WASEL/Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2475
/KHALED M KASSIM/supervisory patent examiner, Art Unit 2475