Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
2. This Office Action is in response to application filed on 11/10/2023. Claims 1-15, 19-23 were previously pending. Claims 1-15, 19-23 are rejected.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 05/31/2024 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the IDS(s) is/are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
4. Claim 15 is objected to because of the following informalities: reciting “system (100)” in line 7 should be –system --. Appropriate correction is required.
Examiner’s Note
5.1. Claim 15, line 7 reciting “adapted to” that suggests or makes claim scope optional, for Examining purpose, Examiner interpretates “adapted to” as used “designed to” or “configured to” in light of Specification [0090].
5.2. Claims 3, 20, lines 3, 3 reciting “possible” that suggests or makes claim scope optional, for Examining purpose, Examiner interpretates “possible” as used “designed to” or “configured to” in light of Specification [0078].
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. 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 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.
6.1. 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 of this title, 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.
6.2. 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.
6.3. Claims 1-3, 7, 9-10, 13, 15, 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horn et al., (“Horn”, US 2022/0330352 A1) in view of Chen, (US 2023/0262532 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, Horn teaches, a method for Relay Selection based on Multi-Interface Load Metric between communication subscribers which can each communicate with at least one base station via at least one communication interface for communication, in which the following steps are carried out on the part of the base station for establishing communication:
characterized in that, granting permission to communicate data from a group of communication subscribers to the at least one base station is established via further communication subscribers by using discovery mechanisms between them (Horn, FIG.8, remote UE 802, relay UE 804, RAN 806, network 808, [0093-98]: the remote UE 802 and relay UE 804 discovery each (at S810); relay UE 804 receives the credential(s) (at S815), the relay UE 804 may establish a Uu connection with the RAN 806 for the relay; the remote UE 802 and the network (e.g., RAN 806 or core network 808) may exchange traffic (at S822) via the relay UE 804 for the PDU session configured for the remote UE 802 based on the credentials).
Horn does not expressly teach
Determining local and thematic information for determining communication subscribers;
Determining a group of communication subscribers based on the local and thematic information, wherein a local area is defined for local restriction of the communication subscribers and wherein at least one of a technological aspect and an interest-related aspect is used for thematic restriction on the part of the base station;
Chen teaches (Chen, [0058]: determining mobility restriction of the UE for 5G private network (“local restriction”), and determining a closed access group (CAG) and 5G multicast and broadcast service (5MBS) (“interest-related”) frequency (“technological”)).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “5MBS” of Chen into the invention of Horn. The suggestion/motivation would have been to incorporate “5MBS” for providing service continuity due to mobility, and/or providing better communication performance (Chen, Abstract). Including the “5MBS” of Chen into the invention of Horn was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Chen.
Regarding Claim 2, Horn-Chen teaches the method according to claim 1, wherein
a) at least one base station computes and provides to further communication subscribers the node in the resources assigned for relaying (Horn, [0102]: The remote UE may continue monitoring measurements for a Uu connection with the base station)
b) broadcast this to further communication subscribers (Horn, FIG.14, remote UE 1402, relay UE 1404, base station 1406, [0118]: communication exchanged for paging relaying between a remote UE 1402, a relay UE 1404, and a source base station 1406)
c) relaying request indicating QoS parameters (Horn, [0155]: the network entity may configure a QoS for the Uu connection with the relay wireless device.)
d) acceptance by further communication subscribers or at least one base station (Horn, [0096]: the remote UE establishes one or more connection and context with a network entity (e.g., RAN 806 or core network 808) via the relay UE 804).
Regarding Claim 3, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, characterized in that, a possible relay node request of further communication subscribers is done on-demand (Horn, [0102]: If the relay UE determines an RLF for the Uu connection with the network, the relay UE may release or suspend the local RAT connection with the remote UE. The relay UE may inform the remote UE of the RLF. The relay UE may stop advertising discovery of the local RAT or may advertise discovery without an indication of support to function as an L2 relay to the network).
Regarding Claim 7, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, characterized in that, data transmitted for the group of communication subscribers as requested from and provided by the base station a technological aspect includes at least any type of resources that are used by the communication subscribers (Horn, [0094]: the remote UE 802 and the remote UE may establish a local connection (e.g., a PC5, WiFi, BLE, BL, or other non-Uu connections)).
Regarding Claim 9, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, characterized in that, technological aspect includes at least any type of resources including the use of carrier aggregation (Horn, FIG.1, base station 102, remote device 103, relay UE 104, link 102, [0051]: The base stations 102/UEs 104 may use spectrum up to Y MHz (e.g., 5, 10, 15, 20, 100, 400, etc. MHz) bandwidth per carrier allocated in a carrier aggregation of up to a total of Yx MHz (x component carriers) used for transmission in each direction).
Regarding Claim 10, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, characterized in that, technological aspect includes at least any type of resources including dual connectivity (Horn, FIG.1, base station 102, [0050]: the base stations 102 may perform one or more of the following functions: transfer of user data, radio channel ciphering and deciphering, integrity protection, header compression, mobility control functions (e.g., handover, dual connectivity)).
Regarding Claim 13, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, characterized in that, the communication subscribers are users (Horn, [0062]: UEs 104 include users of smart phone, a wearable device, etc.) .
Regarding Claim 15, Horn teaches, a vehicle unit comprising a communication unit for communication in a vehicle of a user to a at least one base station comprising a microprocessor, volatile and non-volatile memory and at least one communication interface, which are communicatively connected to the at least one base station or further communication subscribers via one or more mobile communication lines, wherein the system ((Horn, FIG.18, UE 1802, processor 1804, communication manager 1832, [0044, 145]: the UE 1802 includes processor 1804, The components within the communication manager 1832 may be stored in the computer-readable medium/memory and/or configured as hardware within the cellular baseband processor 1804; FIG.1, UE 104, [0062]: UEs 104 includes vehicles).
characterized in that, granting permission to communicate data from a group of communication subscribers to the at least one base station is established via further communication subscribers by using discovery mechanisms between them (Horn, FIG.8, remote UE 802, relay UE 804, RAN 806, core network 808, [0093-98]: the remote UE 802 and relay UE 804 discovery each (at S810); relay UE 804 receives the credential(s) (at S815), the relay UE 804 may establish a Uu connection with the RAN 806 for the relay; the remote UE 802 and the network (e.g., RAN 806 or core network 808) may exchange traffic (at S822) via the relay UE 804 for the PDU session configured for the remote UE 802 based on the credentials).
Horn does not expressly teach
Determining local and thematic information for determining communication subscribers;
Determining a group of communication subscribers based on the local and thematic information, wherein a local area is defined for local restriction of the communication subscribers and wherein at least one of a technological aspect and an interest-related aspect is used for thematic restriction on the part of the base station.
Chen teaches (Chen, [0058]: determining mobility restriction of the UE for 5G private network (“local restriction”), and determining a closed access group (CAG) and 5G multicast and broadcast service (5MBS) (“interest-related”) frequency (“technological”)).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “5MBS” of Chen into the invention of Horn. The suggestion/motivation would have been to incorporate “5MBS” for providing service continuity due to mobility, and/or providing better communication performance (Chen, Abstract). Including the “5MBS” of Chen into the invention of Horn was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Chen.
Regarding Claim 19, Horn-Chen teaches, the vehicle unit according to claim 15, wherein
a) at least one base station computes and provides to further communication subscribers the node in the resources assigned for relaying (Horn, [0102]: The remote UE may continue monitoring measurements for a Uu connection with the base station)
b) broadcast this to further communication subscribers (Horn, FIG.14, remote UE 1402, relay UE 1404, base station 1406, [0118]: communication exchanged for paging relaying between a remote UE 1402, a relay UE 1404, and a source base station 1406)
c) relaying request indicating QoS parameters (Horn, [0155]: the network entity may configure a QoS for the Uu connection with the relay wireless device)
d) acceptance by further communication subscribers or at least one base station (Horn, [0096]: the remote UE establishes one connection and context with a network entity via the relay UE 804).
Regarding Claim 20, Horn-Chen teaches, the vehicle unit according to claim 15,
characterized in that, a possible relay node request of further communication subscribers is done on-demand (Horn, [0102]: If the relay UE determines an RLF for the Uu connection with the network, the relay UE may release or suspend the local RAT connection with the remote UE. The relay UE may inform the remote UE of the RLF. The relay UE may stop advertising discovery of the local RAT or may advertise discovery without an indication of support to function as an L2 relay to the network).
6.4. Claims 4-5, 21-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horn et al., (“Horn”, US 2022/0330352 A1) in view of Chen, (US 2023/0262532 A1), and further in view of Kuo, (US 2021/0409263 A1).
Regarding Claim 4, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, characterized in that, a discovery mechanism used by further communication subscribers is established by announcing its presence and capabilities (Horn, [0093]: the remote UE 802 may advertise a capability to provide a relay service).
Horn-Chen does not expressly teach
regularly transmitting discovery information in a broadcast manner.
Kuo discloses (Kuo, [0286]: The UE-to-UE Relay listens for ProSe applications advertisements (e.g. Direct Discovery or Direct Communication Request messages) from surrounding UEs in a broadcast).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “advertisement” of Kuo into the invention of Horn-Chen. The suggestion/motivation would have been to implement UE announces its supported applications or discovers a target UE using a known discovery mechanism (Kuo, [0286]). Including the “advertisement” of Kuo into the invention of Horn-Chen was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Kuo.
Regarding Claim 5, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, characterized in that, a discovery mechanism used by communication subscribers is established by announcing their presence and inquiring for communication partners by issuing corresponding discovery messages (Horn, [0093]: the remote UE 802 may advertise a capability to provide a relay service).
Kuo discloses (Kuo, [0305]: The ProSe 5G UE-to-UE Relay sends out a Relay Discovery message periodically, announcing its availability for serving other UEs in the area).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “advertisement” of Kuo into the invention of Horn-Chen. The suggestion/motivation would have been to implement UE announces its supported applications or discovers a target UE using a known discovery mechanism (Kuo, [0286]). Including the “advertisement” of Kuo into the invention of Horn-Chen was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Kuo.
Regarding Claim 21, Horn-Chen teaches, the vehicle unit according to claim 15, characterized in that, a discovery mechanism used by further communication subscribers is established by announcing its presence and capabilities (Horn, [0093]: the remote UE 802 may advertise a capability to provide a relay service).
Horn-Chen does not expressly teach
regularly transmitting discovery information in a broadcast manner.
Kuo discloses (Kuo, [0286]: The UE-to-UE Relay listens for ProSe applications advertisements (e.g. Direct Discovery or Direct Communication Request messages) from surrounding UEs in a broadcast).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “advertisement” of Kuo into the invention of Horn-Chen. The suggestion/motivation would have been to implement UE announces its supported applications or discovers a target UE using a known discovery mechanism (Kuo, [0286]). Including the “advertisement” of Kuo into the invention of Horn-Chen was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Kuo.
Regarding Claim 22, Horn-Chen teaches, the vehicle unit according to claim 15,
characterized in that, a discovery mechanism used by communication subscribers is established by announcing their presence and inquiring for communication partners by issuing corresponding discovery messages (Horn, [0093]: the remote UE 802 may advertise a capability to provide a relay service).
Kuo discloses (Kuo, [0305]: The ProSe 5G UE-to-UE Relay sends out a Relay Discovery message periodically, announcing its availability for serving other UEs in the area).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “advertisement” of Kuo into the invention of Horn-Chen. The suggestion/motivation would have been to implement UE announces its supported applications or discovers a target UE using a known discovery mechanism (Kuo, [0286]). Including the “advertisement” of Kuo into the invention of Horn-Chen was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Kuo.
6.5. Claims 6, 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horn et al., (“Horn”, US 2022/0330352 A1) in view of Chen, (US 2023/0262532 A1), and further in view of Wang et al., (“Wang”, US 2022/0086775 A1).
Regarding Claim 6, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, but not expressly teaches, characterized in that, once the group has been determined by at least one further communication subscriber based on network configuration and prioritization by the base station of the data transmitted for the group of communication subscribers to the base station.
Wang discloses (Wang, [0125-127]: the remote UE selects one relay UE of the multiple relay UEs based on the synchronization priority and/or the relay capability configuration).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “synchronization priority” of Wang into the invention of Horn-Chen. The suggestion/motivation would have been to synchronize to network using synchronization signal received from selected relay UE (Wang, Abstract). Including the “synchronization priority” of Wang into the invention of Horn-Chen was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Wang.
Regarding Claim 23, Horn-Chen teaches, the vehicle unit according to claim 15, but not expressly teaches, characterized in that, once the group has been determined by at least one further communication subscriber based on network configuration and prioritization by the base station of the data transmitted for the group of communication subscribers to the base station.
Wang discloses (Wang, [0125-127]: the remote UE selects one relay UE of the multiple relay UEs based on the synchronization priority and/or the relay capability configuration).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “synchronization priority” of Wang into the invention of Horn-Chen. The suggestion/motivation would have been to synchronize to network using synchronization signal received from selected relay UE (Wang, Abstract). Including the “synchronization priority” of Wang into the invention of Horn-Chen was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Wang.
6.6. Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horn et al., (“Horn”, US 2022/0330352 A1) in view of Chen, (US 2023/0262532 A1), and further in view of Basu Mallick et al., (“Basu”, US 2017/0317740 A1).
Regarding Claim 8, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, but not expressly teaches, characterized in that, technological aspect includes at least any type of resources including the use of Bandwidth Parts, whereby Bandwidth Parts consists of contiguous sub-set of resources within a Component Carrier.
Basu teaches (Basu, [0017-18]: Carrier aggregation is supported for both contiguous and non-contiguous component).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “carrier aggregation” of Basu into the invention of Horn-Chen. The suggestion/motivation would have been to enable UE to simultaneously receive or transmit on one or multiple component carriers (corresponding to multiple serving cells) depending on its capabilities (Basu, [0017-18]). Including the “carrier aggregation” of Basu into the invention of Horn-Chen was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Basu.
6.7. Claims 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horn et al., (“Horn”, US 2022/0330352 A1) in view of Chen, (US 2023/0262532 A1).and further in view of Cheng et al., (“Cheng”, US 2022/0361076 A1).
Regarding Claim 11, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, but not expressly teaches, characterized in that, but not expressly teaches technological aspect includes the aspect of relay selection single-hop or multi-hop PC5-to-Uu relaying by introducing a composite load metric.
Cheng teaches (Cheng, [0038]]: different QoS requirement (e.g. corresponding to different PQI value, logical channel priority, or latency budget) may be mapped to different load threshold (i.e. multi-level threshold). For example, for a relay UE who cannot support short-latency relay (e.g., due to multiple hops to the base station, high load on the relay UE's PC5 or Uu interface, or other considerations), a remote UE with a delay-tolerant traffic may still select it as relay UE, but a remote UE running a delay-sensitive application will not select it as relay UE; [0032]: The load threshold may be defined in terms of various metrics, e.g., a maximum throughput on the UE's Uu interface, a maximum density of required resource grants on the UE's Uu interface, and so on (“composite load metric”)).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “composite load metric” of Cheng into the invention of Horn-Chen. The suggestion/motivation would have been to enable the criteria of selecting multiple of hops between a relay UE to gNB is based on latency requirement (Cheng, [0017-18]). Including the “composite load metric” of Cheng into the invention of Horn-Chen was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Cheng.
Regarding Claim 12, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, but not expressly teaches, characterized in that, but not expressly teaches the relay selection meets the communication subscribers E2E QoS requirements, and triggering a procedure for selection and/or reselection for further communication subscribers.
Cheng teaches (Cheng, [0038]]: different QoS requirement (e.g. corresponding to different PQI value, logical channel priority, or latency budget) may be mapped to different load threshold (i.e. multi-level threshold). For example, for a relay UE who cannot support short-latency relay (e.g., due to multiple hops to the base station, high load on the relay UE's PC5 or Uu interface, or other considerations), a remote UE with a delay-tolerant traffic may still select it as relay UE, but a remote UE running a delay-sensitive application will not select it as relay UE; [0032-33]: The load threshold may be defined in terms of various metrics, e.g., a maximum throughput on the UE's Uu interface, a maximum density of required resource grants on the UE's Uu interface, and so on (“composite load metric”); the number of hops between a relay UE to gNB can be an criteria for remote UE to select relay UE, in particular when the remote UE has a tight latency requirement requested by the supported applications, traffic, and QoS flow).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “composite load metric” of Cheng into the invention of Horn-Chen. The suggestion/motivation would have been to enable the criteria of selecting multiple of hops between a relay UE to gNB is based on latency requirement (Cheng, [0017-18]). Including the “composite load metric” of Cheng into the invention of Horn-Chen was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Cheng.
6.8. Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Horn et al., (“Horn”, US 2022/0330352 A1) in view of Chen, (US 2023/0262532 A1).and further in view of Liu et al., (“Liu”, US 2016/0021178 A1).
Regarding Claim 14, Horn-Chen teaches, the method according to claim 1, but not expressly teaches, but not expressly teaches the local and thematic information is determined from the mean value of the spatial coordinates of the end users and the respective relative speed v and average direction of the end users.
Liu teaches (Liu, [0039]: determine a range, an altitude, a direction, a shape, and/or speed of objects. [0062]: the geo-fence data includes geo-spatial coordinates).
Prior to the effective filing date of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement the “geo-information” of Liu into the invention of Horn-Chen. The suggestion/motivation would have been to enable other vehicles to control and safely handle in an ad-hoc network (Liu, Abstract). Including the “geo-information” of Liu into the invention of Horn-Chen was within the ordinary ability of one of ordinary skill in the art based on the teachings of Liu.
Conclusion
7. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Talebi Fard et al., US 2023/0319685 A1, Access restriction parameter sending method for e.g. wireless device, involves sending message indicating request to access overlay network, and receiving message comprising access restriction parameter from underlay network.
Ghasri et al., Novel Relay Selection Algorithms for Machine-to-Machine Communications With Static RF Interfaces Setting, IEEE Access, VOLUME 8, 2020, October 29, 2020, Page 189989-190008, Total 20 Pages.
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/C.L/Examiner, Art Unit 2446
/BRIAN J. GILLIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2446
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