DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
Applicant's arguments filed 3/30/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues Wang fails to disclose carrying QoS parameters are associated with logical channel. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Wang discloses QoS parameters page 5 “Optionally,……PC5 logical channel……..The foregoing PC5 bearer setup ……the PC 5 carriers QoS information”, page 15 “priority guarantee……..QoS information includes nay combination of the following: quality of service…….AMBR”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 16-17 and 20-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang (WO 2018028694 A1).
Regarding claims 16 and 20, Wang discloses a quality of service (QoS) parameter configuration method, applied to a relay terminal or to a peer node, comprising: receiving a QoS parameter, transmitted from a QoS management node, used by a sidelink interface in a transmission direction from the relay terminal to a peer node and from the peer node to the relay terminal of the QoS management node (page 12 “After the base station ……..the base station sends the UE-PC5-AMBR to the remote UE or the relay UE using RRC dedicated signaling…….according to the UE-PC-AMBR autonomously selecting resources”);
wherein in case that the QoS parameter is a first sidelink interface QoS parameter associated with a sidelink interface logical channel, carrying the first sidelink interface QoS parameter in configuration information for the sidelink interface logical channel, and transmitting the first sidelink interface QoS parameter to the relay terminal (page 5 “Optionally,……PC5 logical channel……..The foregoing PC5 bearer setup ……the PC 5 carriers QoS information”, page 15 “priority guarantee……..QoS information includes nay combination of the following: quality of service…….AMBR”); or
in case that the QoS parameter is a second sidelink interface QoS parameter associated with a remote terminal and/or the relay terminal, adding an information element (IE) or a field in a radio resource control (RRC) signaling, carrying the second sidelink interface QoS parameter in the IE or the field, and transmitting the second sidelink interface QoS parameter to the relay terminal (consideration is optional).
Regarding claims 17 and 21, Wang discloses for a user equipment- to-network (U2N) relay scenario, the QoS management node is a network device; and the receiving the QoS parameter, transmitted from the QoS management node, used by the sidelink interface in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node of the QoS management node comprises: receiving the QoS parameter, transmitted from the network device, used by the sidelink interface in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node through radio resource control (RRC) signaling over a Uu interface between the network device and the relay terminal; wherein for a UE-to-UE relay scenario, the QoS management node is a transmitting terminal in any sidelink transmission direction or any remote terminal performing communication through UE-to-UE relay; and the receiving the QoS parameter, transmitted from the QoS management node, used by the sidelink interface in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node of the QoS management node comprises: receiving the QoS parameter, transmitted from the QoS management node, used by the sidelink interface in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node through RRC signaling over a sidelink interface between the QoS management node and the relay terminal,wherein the relay terminal uses a resource allocation mode of terminal autonomous resource selection over the sidelink interface (page 8 “Optionally, after the relay UE receives the PC5 bearer………….RRC dedicated signaling…..the relay UE according to the received relay forwarding indication information…..the remote UE according to the received relay forwarding indication information”, page 12 “After the base station ……..the base station sends the UE-PC5-AMBR to the remote UE or the relay UE using RRC dedicated signaling…….according to the UE-PC-AMBR autonomously selecting resources”).
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, 3, 5, 7, 10-11, 15, 23-25, 27 and 32-33 and are rejected under 35
U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Paladugu (US Pub. 2021/0289392) in view of Wang (WO 2018/028694 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Paldugu discloses a quality of service (QoS) parameter configuration method, applied to a QoS management node, comprising:
determining a QoS parameter used by a sidelink interface in a target transmission direction between a relay terminal and a peer node of the QoS management node; and transmitting the QoS parameter to the relay terminal and/or the peer node (par.0159-0161), fig. 4 elements 435, 440).
Wang discloses transmitting the QoS parameter to the peer node (page 12 “After the base station ……..the base station sends the UE-PC5-AMBR to the remote UE or the relay UE using RRC dedicated signaling…….according to the UE-PC-AMBR autonomously selecting resources”). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the system of Paladugu with the above teaching of Wang in order to support UE-PC-AMBR autonomously
selecting resources.
The modified Paladugu discloses wherein in case that the QoS parameter is a first sidelink interface QoS parameter associated with a sidelink interface logical channel, carrying the first sidelink interface QoS parameter in configuration information for the sidelink interface logical channel, and transmitting the first sidelink interface QoS parameter to the relay terminal (Wang, page 5 “Optionally,……PC5 logical channel……..The foregoing PC5 bearer setup ……the PC 5 carriers QoS information”, page 15 “priority guarantee……..QoS information includes nay combination of the following: quality of service…….AMBR”); or
in case that the QoS parameter is a second sidelink interface QoS parameter associated with a remote terminal and/or the relay terminal, adding an information element (IE) or a field in a radio resource control (RRC) signaling, carrying the second sidelink interface QoS parameter in the IE or the field, and transmitting the second sidelink interface QoS parameter to the relay terminal (consideration is optional).
Regarding claims 2 and 24-25, the modified Paldugu discloses wherein for a user equipment-to-network (U2N) relay scenario, the QoS management node is a network device; and the transmitting the QoS parameter to the relay terminal and/or the peer node comprises at least one of the following: transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in a downlink transmission direction to the relay terminal ( Paldugu, par.0159-0161; Wang page 12 “After the base station ……..the base station sends the UE-PC5-AMBR to the remote UE or the relay UE using RRC dedicated signaling…….according to the UE-PC-AMBR autonomously selecting resources”); or transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in an uplink transmission direction to the peer node (Pladugu, par.0163).
Regarding claims 3 and 5, the modified Paldugu discloses the transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in the downlink transmission direction to the relay terminal comprises: transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in the downlink transmission direction to the relay terminal through radio resource control (RRC) signaling over a Uu interface between the network device and the relay terminal,wherein the transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in the downlink transmission direction to the relay terminal through the RRC signaling over the Uu interface between the network device and the relay terminal comprises at least one of the following:
in case that the QoS parameter is a first sidelink interface QoS parameter associated with a sidelink interface logical channel, carrying the first sidelink interface QoS parameter in configuration information for the sidelink interface logical channel in the downlink transmission direction, and transmitting the first sidelink interface QoS parameter to the relay terminal (Wang, page 22-23 “Step 3……..the QoS parameter……logical channel identifier , and logical channel”);
and in case that the QoS parameter is a second sidelink interface QoS parameter associated with a remote terminal and/or the relay terminal, adding an information element (IE) or a field in the RRC signaling, carrying the second sidelink interface QoS parameter in the IE or the field, and transmitting the second sidelink
interface QoS parameter to the relay terminal (consideration is optional).
Regarding claim 7, the modified Paldugu discloses for a UE-to-UE relay scenario, the QoS management node is a transmitting terminal in any sidelink transmission direction; and the transmitting the QoS parameter to the relay terminal and/or the peer node comprises:
transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in a transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node to the relay terminal, wherein the transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node to the relay terminal comprises: transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node to the relay terminal through the RRC signaling over the sidelink interface between the transmitting terminal and the relay terminal,wherein the transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node to the relay terminal through the RRC signaling over the sidelink interface between the transmitting terminal and the relay terminal comprises at least one of the following:
in case that the QoS parameter is a first sidelink interface QoS parameter associated with a sidelink interface logical channel, carrying the first sidelink interface QoS parameter in configuration information for the sidelink interface logical channel in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node, and transmitting the first sidelink interface QoS parameter to the relay terminal (Paldugu, par.0146, 0151);
and in case that the QoS parameter is a second sidelink interface QoS parameter associated with a remote terminal and/or the relay terminal, adding an information element (IE) or a field in the RRC signaling, carrying the second sidelink interface QoS parameter in the IE or the field, and transmitting the second sidelink interface QoS parameter to the relay terminal (consideration is optional).
Regarding claims 10 and 27, the modified Paldugu discloses for a UE-to-UE relay scenario, the QoS management node is any remote terminal performing communication through UE-to-UE relay; and the transmitting the QoS parameter to the relay terminal and/or the peer node comprises at least one of the following: transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in a transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node to the relay terminal; and transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in a transmission direction from the peer node to the relay terminal to the peer node (Paldugu, par.0101).
Regarding claim 11, the modified Paldugu discloses the transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node to the relay terminal comprises: transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node to the relay terminal through RRC signaling over the sidelink interface between the remote terminal and the relay terminal, wherein the transmitting the QoS parameter used by the sidelink interface in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node to the relay terminal through the RRC signaling over the sidelink interface between the remote terminal and the relay terminal comprises at least one of the following:
in case that the QoS parameter is a first sidelink interface QoS parameter associated with a sidelink interface logical channel, carrying the first sidelink interface QoS parameter in configuration information for the sidelink interface logical channel in the transmission direction from the relay terminal to the peer node, and transmitting the first sidelink interface QoS parameter to the relay terminal (Paldugu, par.0146, 0151); and
in case that the QoS parameter is a second sidelink interface QoS parameter associated with a remote terminal and/or the relay terminal, adding an information element (IE) or a field in the RRC signaling, carrying the second sidelink interface QoS parameter in the IE or the field, and transmitting the second sidelink interface QoS parameter to the relay terminal (consideration is optional).
Regarding claim 15, the modified Paldugu discloses the QoS parameter comprises any one of the following or a combination thereof: a packet delay budget; a packet error rate (consideration is optional); and a PC5 link aggregation maximum bit rate (page 12 “After the base station ……..the base station sends the UE-PC5-AMBR to the remote UE or the relay UE using RRC dedicated signaling…….according to the UE-PC-AMBR autonomously selecting resources”).
Regarding claim 23, the modified Paldugu discloses a quality of service (QoS) management node, comprising a memory, a transceiver and a processor, wherein the memory is used for storing a computer program; the transceiver is used for receiving and transmitting data under control of the processor; the processor is used for reading the computer program in the memory (Paldugu, par.005).
Regarding claim 32, the modified Paldugu discloses a relay terminal, comprising a memory, a transceiver and a processor, wherein the memory is used for storing a computer program; the transceiver is used for receiving and transmitting data under control of the processor; the processor is used for reading the computer program in the memory (Paldugu, par.005).
Regarding claim 33, the modified Paldugu discloses a peer node of a quality of service (QoS) management node, comprising a memory, a transceiver and a processor, wherein the memory is used for storing a computer program; the transceiver is used for receiving and transmitting data under control of the processor; the processor is used for reading the computer program in the memory (Paldugu, par.005).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 13 and 29 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Examiner Tu Nguyen whose telephone number is (571)272-7883. The examiner can normally be reached on 8AM-5PM Eastern Time.
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/TU X. NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2642
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