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
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 48-71 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li et al. (US 2022/0232626 A1), hereinafter “Li”, in view of R1-2101400, “Discussion on Reduce Power Consumption for Sidelink”, 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 #104-e, hereinafter “R1-2101400”.
Claims 48, 57, 60, and 69:
Regarding claim 48, Li teaches, a method, implemented by a node, the method comprising: generating one or more partial sensing configurations and one or more Discontinuous Reception (DRX) configurations for a first User Equipment (UE) (Li: [abstract] “Methods and apparatuses for handling partial sensing and discontinuous reception for sidelink communication to reduce potential latency due to additional sensing and to improve resource utilization efficiency.”; ),
wherein the one or more partial sensing configurations comprise parameters related to a partial sensing operation based on the partial sensing configuration ([0054] and [0055] indicates parameters related to partial sensing configuration; [0055] “candidate single-subframe resource for PSSCH transmission Rx,y is defined as a set of LsubcH contiguous sub-channels with sub-channel x+j in subframe t/L where j=0, ... , Lsubch-1 … Y subframes within the time interval [n+T1,n+T2] where selections of T1 and T2 are up to UE implementations under T1 ≤ 4 and T2 min (priorTX) ≤ T2 ≤ 100, if T2 min(priorTX) is provided by higher layers for priorTX, otherwise 20 ≤ T2 ≤ 100., etc. ”; Fig.6 shows partial sensing slot and extended partial sensing window); and
transmitting, to the first UE, the one or more partial sensing configurations, at least one of which is to be used by the first UE for partial sensing, and the one or more DRX configurations, at least one of which is to be used by the first UE for DRX ([Abstract]: “The first device can perform sensing for a contiguous sensing duration after the timing, determine or select a first sidelink resource from a set of sidelink resources, and perform a first sidelink transmission on the first sidelink resource for transmitting the sidelink data to the second device.”).
Though Li teaches partial sensing configurations, e.g. Fig.6 showing an extended partial sensing window for aperiodic traffic, and FIGS. 14A-14B showing a UE triggering resource sensing (and selection), e.g., in slot n, for a sidelink data, (starting to) perform additional sensing for an additional sensing duration, e.g., in a time interval, in accordance with embodiments of the present invention, it does not expressly teach, wherein the one or more partial sensing configurations are associated with the one or more DRX configurations.
The claim is however implied by disclosures in R1-2101400 §2.2.2.2. “we are proposing unified partial sensing and DRX approach. In our understanding, the DRX ON/OFF durations (needed for R._X) need to be aligned to the partial (limited) sensing definition (which is needed for TX candidate resource selection). For example, a UE should conduct the sensing and RX decoding during some possible DRX active opportunities. Therefore, we propose considering a jointly aligned DRX configuration and partial sensing definition at least for the TX/RX capable VRU, i.e., Type-D and alike UEs.”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by R1-2101400 with that of Li and come up with the claimed invention motivated by use of unified partial sensing and DRX approach as described in §2.2.2.3, “In NR side] ink, power saving UEs may be requested to perform advanced VRU communication. Hence, these UEs may need to extend their sub-sensing window and/or its reception activity timers based on the actual conditions. In this case, e.g., the length of the sub-sensing window (i.e., also DRX ON duration) and the inactive sensing period (i.e., also DRX OFF duration) can be selected adaptively.”.
Claim 57 is a method complimentary to the method of claim 48. Claim elements are discussed above in claim 48. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 48.
Claim 60 is for a device implementing method of claim 48. This is change in category with respect to claim 48. Existence of processor and memory is implied. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 48.
Claim 69 is for a device implementing method of claim 57. This is change in category with respect to claim 57. Existence of processor and memory is implied. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 57.
Claims 49 and 61:
Regarding claim 49, combination of Li and R1-2101400 teaches the method of claim 48 (discussed above), wherein the one or more DRX configurations are generated based on at least one partial sensing configuration that is currently in use (implied by disclosures in Li [0426] “Hence, it is important to clarify the differences and relationship of the partial sensing mechanism to be specified in RAN1 and the SL DRX configuration which is specified in RAN2. In our view, both mechanisms should be defined in a complementary manner, i.e., they need to be aligned in order to optimize the savings on SL UE power consumption.”; and [0427] “when SL DRX is (pre-)configured, the (partial) sensing performed by the UEs is only available during the active time defined by the SL DRX configuration.”; requirement for alignment for both the scenarios teaches the claim).
Claim 69 is rejected based on rejection of claim 49.
Claims 50, 58, 62, and 70:
Regarding claim 50, combination of Li and R1-2101400 teaches the method of claim 48 (discussed above).
Though LI does not expressly teach, ‘wherein the parameters related to the partial sensing operation based on the partial sensing configuration comprise an indicator indicating whether partial sensing is allowed to be performed during a DRX inactive slot. the claim is implied by disclosure in R1-2101400, “In NR sidelink, power saving UEs may be requested to perform advanced VRU communication. Hence, these UEs may need to extend their sub-sensing window and/or its reception activity timers based on the actual conditions. In this case, e.g., the length of the sub-sensing window (i.e., also DRX ON duration) and the inactive sensing period (i.e., also DRX OFF duration) can be selected adaptively.”; Extension of sub-sensing window implies indication of allowance of partial sensing during DRX inactive time).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by R1-2101400 with that of Li and come up with the claimed invention motivated by adaptively extending sub-sensing window for enhanced power saving as discussed above.
Claims 58, 62, and 70 are rejected based on rejection of claim 50. Reason for rejection is similar to discussion above in claims 48, 58, 60, and 69, as discussed above.
Claims 51 and 63:
Regarding claim 51, combination of Li and R1-2101400 teaches the method of claim 48 (discussed above), wherein the partial sensing configuration further comprises at least one of:
identification information of the partial sensing configuration;
identification information of resource pools related to the partial sensing configuration; or
information of applications, services, traffic types, logical channels, and/or logical channel groups associated with the partial sensing configuration (Li: [0566] “Preferably in certain embodiments, the first UE may have/maintain/establish a first sidelink link/connection and a second sidelink link/connection. The paired UEs of the first sidelink link/connection may be different from the paired UEs of the second sidelink link/connection. Preferably in certain embodiments, the one or more sidelink logical channels associated with (the paired UEs of) the first sidelink link/connection are separate/independent from the one or more sidelink logical channels associated with (the paired UEs of) the second sidelink link/connection.”).
Claim 63 is rejected based on rejection of claim 51 for similar reason discussed above.
Claims 52 and 64:
Regarding claim 52, combination of Li and R1-2101400 teaches the method of claim 51 (discussed above), wherein the information of applications, services, traffic types, logical channels, and/or logical channel groups associated with the partial sensing configuration comprises at least one of:
identification information of applications, services, traffic types, logical channels, and/or logical channel groups associated with the partial sensing configuration;
priority information of applications, services, traffic types, logical channels, and/or logical channel groups associated with the partial sensing configuration (Li: [0491] “Preferably in certain embodiments, the specific value may be determined based on a data priority of the sidelink data. For example, the specific value may be determined as a smaller value if data priority of the sidelink data is lower than a priority threshold. The specific value may be determined as a larger value if data priority of the sidelink data is higher than the priority threshold. Alternatively, the specific value may be determined as a larger value if data priority of the sidelink data is lower than a priority threshold. The specific value may be determined as a smaller value if data priority of the sidelink data is higher than the priority threshold.”); or
Quality of Service (QoS) requirement information of applications, services, traffic types, logical channels or logical channel groups.
The claims element that Li disclosed is one of the options in the claim.
Claim 64 is rejected based on rejection of claim 52 for similar reason discussed above.
Claims 53 and 65:
Regarding claim 53, combination of Li and R1-2101400 teaches the method of claim 51 (discussed above), wherein the parameters related to the partial sensing operation based on the partial sensing configuration comprise at least one of:
a duration of a sensing window of the partial sensing operation;
parameters indicating sensing slots of the partial sensing operation;
a maximum number of sensing slots during the sensing window;
a minimum number of sensing slots during the sensing window; or
a periodicity defining how often periodic partial sensing should be performed (Li: 0434] “partial sensing window duration is defined as to be [n, n+ T4), where the T4 value is chosen by UE within a certain range”).
The claims element that Li disclosed is one of the options in the claim.
Claim 65 is rejected based on rejection of claim 53 for similar reason discussed above.
Claims 54 and 66:
Regarding claim 54, combination of Li and R1-2101400 teaches the method of claim 48 (discussed above).
Li however fails to expressly teach, activating at least one of the one or more partial sensing configurations for use by the UE for partial sensing by transmitting, to the first UE, identification information of the at least one partial sensing configuration that needs to be activated; and/or
deactivating at least one of the one or more partial sensing configurations by transmitting, to the first UE, identification information of the at least one partial sensing configuration that needs to be deactivated.
R1-2101400, though not expressly teach the claim elements, It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to come up with the claim combining disclosure by Li with the following disclosures by R1-2101400:
a) in § 2.1, R1-2101400 discloses two options for sidelink reception with multiple UE capabilities and discloses “a UE should be able to switch between multiple different sidelink capabilities based on function, e.g., switch between Type-D and Type A reception capabilities. Type A device can perform Tx only and Type D device can send and receive aperiodic resources, as discussed in § 2.2.1
A person of ordinary skill would be motivated to come up with the claimed invention to be able to support both kinds of devices as mentioned above.
Claim 66 is rejected based on rejection of claim 54 for similar reason discussed above.
Claims 55 and 67:
Regarding claim 55, combination of Li and R1-2101400 teaches the method of claim 48 (discussed above).
The claim further comprising configuring a selection rule at the first UE indicating that the first UE is to select the at least one of the one or more partial sensing configurations for partial sensing based on at least one of:
an application, a service, a traffic type, a logical channel, and/or a logical channel group, that is associated with the at least one partial sensing configuration, being used by the first UE;
a priority of an application, a service, a traffic type, a logical channel, and/or a logical channel group that is associated with the at least one partial sensing configuration; or
a QoS requirement of an application, a service, a traffic type, a logical channel, and/or a logical channel group that is associated with the at least one partial sensing configuration,
is discussed above in claim 51 based on disclosure by Li in [0566] disclosing one of the options in the claim.
Claim 67 is rejected based on rejection of claim 55 for similar reason discussed above.
Claims 56, 59, 68, and 71:
Regarding claim 56, combination of Li and R1-2101400 teaches the method of claim 48 (discussed above), wherein:
the node is a network node serving the first UE and transmitting the one or more partial sensing configurations is implemented via one of:
system information;
a paging message;
a control Protocol Data Unit 'PDU' of a protocol layer;
Downlink Control Information (DCI); a Media Access Control (MAC) Control Element (CE); dedicated Radio Resource Control (RRC) signaling; or
a handover command; or
the node is a second UE in direct communication with the first UE and transmitting the one or more partial sensing configurations is implemented via one of: PC5-RRC signaling; a control PDU of a protocol layer; a MAC CE; or Sidelink Control Information (SCI) (implied by disclosures in Li: [411] “UE perform sensing on each set and then exclude candidate resources according to the SCI decoded in the sensing slot sets.”; and disclosure of using SCI additional sensing in [0458].).
Claims 59, 68, and 71 are rejected based on rejection of claim 53 for similar reason discussed above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
a) US-20210227602-A1 discloses discontinuous reception and partial sensing; and
b) US-20220225408-A1 discloses discontinuous reception and partial sensing
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/INTEKHAAB A SIDDIQUEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462