Response to Amendment
This Office Action is in response to claim amendment filed on June 11, 2026.
Claims 1-5 are amended.
Claims 1-5 are currently pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
The objection to claims 4 and 5 has been withdrawn for the reasons stated in
applicant’s response (see remarks Pg. 4).
Applicant’s arguments and amendments (see remarks Pg. 4-5) with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-5 under 35 U.S.C. §103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn.
However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made as
necessitated by the claim amendments.
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.
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 non-obviousness.
Claim(s) 1-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHANG et al., US 20210153063 A1, (hereinafter ZHANG) in view of Xu et al., US 10945179 B2, (hereinafter Xu) and in further view of CHENG et al., US 20230262569 A1, (hereinafter CHENG) and in further view of Wang, US 12335841 B2, (hereinafter Wang).
Regarding claim 1-5, ZHANG teaches a communication control method,
comprising: configuring, by a network apparatus, to a first user equipment a path between the network apparatus and the first user equipment via a second user equipment wherein the configuring includes transmitting, by the network apparatus, a message to configure the path to the first user equipment (see ¶ [0144], e.g., For a remote UE, which may be a destination remote UE or a source remote UE, at 801 the remote UE receives configuration signaling for UC with configured connectivity (e.g., via multiple relay UEs only, via direct and indirect connections, with multiple-hop relays, or any combination of these), and with resource allocation(s) for UC transmissions and receptions. Signaling can be semi-static or dynamic, through RRC, DCI, or SCI, and may be received directly or indirectly from a BS in the example shown; ¶ [0011] the UC bearer attributes include any one or more of: a UC bearer identity; a UC bearer index; one or more destination identifiers; one or more source identifiers; a total number of UC bearer streams processed from the associated PDCP bearer; an indication of whether the UC bearer comprises a split PDCP bearer or a duplicated PDCP bearer; an indication of an identifier of a relay path or route; an indication of a total number of UC paths or routes for a UE; ), and
the message includes information regarding a radio bearer (see ¶ [0015], e.g., A third aspect of the present disclosure relates to a method for a remote UE. The method involves receiving signaling to enable relay-based UE cooperation (UC) by a group of UEs, and receiving a configuration. The group of UEs includes the remote UE and a relay UE. The configuration includes adaptation information for processing of UC bearer traffic. The UC bearer traffic includes a UC bearer and UC bearer attributes, and the UC bearer includes either a split packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) bearer or a duplicated PDCP bearer indicated in the UC bearer attributes. The method further includes communicating the UC bearer traffic with the relay UE. See ¶ [0054], e.g., A UE cooperation bearer (UC bearer or UC radio bearer) is defined herein as a “split” bearer (e.g., a split of PDCP DRB(s) and/or SRB(s) or a split of PDCP bearer or bearers); see ¶ [0055] An adaptation protocol (AP) or adaptation information, for example, can be functionally considered here as part of a PDCP enhanced feature when a split or duplication of PDCP bearer(s) (or PDCP context, PDCP bearer context) is formed, called UE cooperation (UC) bearer when UC is configured. The AP is used to provide additional information, also referred to herein as a UC bearer attribute or UC bearer attributes, to describe newly formed UC traffic, also referred to herein as UC bearer traffic, for relaying, switching, and/or routing towards a destination. A destination may be a UE or a network device. See ¶ [0147] 804 illustrates one or more MAC entities handling multiple RLC streams (or entities), including one for each UC bearer. One or more parameters including any of bearer priority, a reliability requirement, or a desired or required QoS, may impact bearer traffic handling, and may be reflected in a MAC logical channel with a logical group ID for example),
however, it does not explicitly indicate information regarding a Radio Link Control (RLC) channel and a Layer 2 (L2) ID of the second user equipment.
Xu teaches, the message includes information regarding an RLC channel (see Fig. 4, e.g., element 408, Col. 22, lines 17-41, e.g., S408: If the base station allows the eRemote UE to perform the communication path switching, the base station sends a second message to the eRemote UE, where the second message carries at least one of first bearer configuration information and first indication information that is used to instruct the eRemote UE to perform the communication path switching; … the first bearer configuration information includes a mapping relationship between at least one first radio bearer and at least one second radio bearer, and configurations of a radio link control entity and a logical channel that are corresponding to the at least one first radio bearer. The first radio bearer is a radio bearer used for the communication link between the eRemote UE and the eRelay UE, and the second radio bearer is a radio bearer used for the communication link between the eRemote UE and the base station.).
CHENG teaches, information regarding ID of the second user equipment (see Fig. 8, element 2b-2d; ¶ [0079], e.g., FIG. 8 illustrates an example mobility procedure with a sidelink relay, where a remote UE is switched from a Uu connection to PC5… it may be up to the network to decide a path/relay target for the handover (HO)…This type of mobility procedure may be applied to both L2 and L3 relays; see ¶ [0093] - ¶ [0094], e.g., After receiving the measurement report, in response, the network may send RRC reconfiguration message including a selected PC5 relay UE ID and a relay path ID.);
however, even though CHENG teaches that it’s a L2/L3 UE-to-NW Relay UE (see Fig. 8 element UE-to-NW Relay UE, NG-RAN) it does not explicitly indicate this second user equipment ID as Layer 2 (L2) ID.
Wang teaches second user equipment ID as Layer 2 (L2) ID (see Col. 8, lines 13-28, e.g., the remote UE ID and the relay UE ID is the Layer 2 UE ID as defined by 3GPP TS 23.003.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective
filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the message containing configuration of ZHANG to incorporate the teachings of Xu to include information regarding an RLC channel and incorporate the teachings of CHENG and Wang to include information regarding Layer 2 (L2) ID of the second user equipment. Doing so would facilitate in achieving smoothly completing the communication path switching as suggested by Xu (see Col. 3, lines 55-59, e.g., The first user equipment may perform corresponding processing based on information included in the second message, so as to smoothly complete the communication path switching.) and as suggested by CHENG (see Abs, e.g., switching a remote user equipment (UE) between a direct connection (e.g., Uu) to a network and an indirect connection (e.g., PC5) to the network via a relay UE connected to a relay.).
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.
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/POONAM SHARMA/Examiner, Art Unit 2472
/KEVIN T BATES/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2472
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