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 .
Response to Amendment
This communication is in response to the amendment of 12/29/2025 in which Applicant elects Group I (claims 1-6). Accordingly, Claims 1-6 are currently pending and Claims 7-9 withdrawn.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Invention I. (claims 1-6) in the reply filed on 12/29/2025 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that there would be no serious burden on Examiner. This is not found persuasive because Group I is shown to have separate utility such as a communication method applied to a first terminal device…,the method comprising: sending a first message to a second terminal device and monitoring sidelink control information (SCI) on the resource corresponding to the first resource set and Group II is shown to have separate utility such as receiving a first message from a first terminal device.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ryu et al. (US 2022/0046745), in view of Zhao et al. (US 2023/0328697)
Regarding claim 1, 4, Ryu discloses a communication method applied to a first terminal device, the first terminal device is a terminal device that uses sidelink (SL) discontinuous reception (DRX)(A wireless communication device can activate a discontinuous reception (DRX) mode having first inactive and active time periods allowing a user equipment (UE) to communicate sidelink control signals to another UE, abstract), the method comprising:
sending a first message to a second terminal device, wherein the first message comprises a resource, and the resource is used by the second terminal device for SL transmission (a user equipment (UE) (correlating to first terminal) is disclosed, comprising a wireless transceiver; a memory; and a processor communicatively coupled to the wireless transceiver and the memory, wherein the processor and the memory are configured to activate a discontinuous reception (DRX) mode comprising…second inactive time periods and second active time periods allowing the UE to monitor receipt of sidelink control signals from another UE (correlating to second terminal); and transmit a message to the another UE to indicate an upcoming second active time period allowing the UE to monitor the receipt of the sidelink control signals, [0007]-[0008] and [0147]-[0151] and figure 14 and [0119]-[0122])
using the resource as activation time of the SL DRX, or disabling the SL DRX on the resource (configured to activate a discontinuous reception (DRX) mode comprising…second inactive time periods and second active time periods allowing the UE to monitor receipt of sidelink control signals from another UE, [0007]-[0008] and [0147]-[0151] and figure 14 and [0119]-[0122]); and
monitoring sidelink control information (SCI) on the resource, wherein the SCI comprises SCI from the second terminal device (transmit a message to the another UE to indicate an upcoming second active time period allowing the UE to monitor the receipt of the sidelink control signals and the sidelink control messages may include Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH) control messages that may further include sidelink control information (SCI) messages , [0007]-[0008] and [0147]-[0149] and figure 14 and [0119]-[0122])
Ryu however fails to disclose a first resource set used by the second terminal device for SL transmission in relationship to the resource. Ryu discloses second active time periods (e.g., 812, 814) allowing the UE to monitor the receipt of sidelink control messages from another UE with respects to DRX ([0148]). In a similar field of endeavor, Zhao discloses a first resource set used by the second terminal device for SL transmission (UE1 obtains the set of available resources according to the listening result, and sends the resource set to UE2. When UE2 selects resources for the sidelink data sent to UE1, UE2 can obtain the resources from the set of available resources, so as to improve the reliability of UE1 receiving the sidelink data and the resource set includes M resources, respectively corresponding to time domain positions T1, T2, . . . , TM, [0058]-[0059] and [0146] and [0068] and [0080]-[0082] and [0091]-[0092] and figure 6). It 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 to incorporate the concept of sending a resource set to another UE such that the another UE selects resources for sidelink transmissions as disclosed by Zhao into the method comprising activating a DRX mode comprising transmitting a message to another UE to indicate an active time period for a UE to monitor SCI as disclosed by Ryu in order to improve the method and provide flexible means of indicating resources for sidelink communication, such as via indicating a resource/active time period or a resource set comprising a resource/active time period.
Claim(s) 3, 6, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ryu, in view of Zhao, in further view of Wu et al. (US 2021/0243836).
Regarding claim 3, 6, Ryu and Zhao fails to disclose wherein the first message is a PC5 radio resource control (RRC) message, and an RRC layer of the first terminal device indicates, to a media access control (MAC) layer of the first terminal device, activation time corresponding to the first resource set, or indicates the MAC layer of the first terminal device to disable the SL DRX; or the first message is a physical (PHY) layer message, and a PHY layer of the first terminal device indicates, to the MAC layer of the first terminal device, the activation time corresponding to the first resource set, or indicates the MAC layer of the first terminal device to disable the SL DRX; or the first message is an SL MAC control element (CE) message.
In a similar field of endeavor, Wu discloses wherein the first message is a PC5 radio resource control (RRC) message, and an RRC layer of the first terminal device indicates, to a media access control (MAC) layer of the first terminal device, activation time corresponding to the first resource set, or indicates the MAC layer of the first terminal device to disable the SL DRX; or the first message is a physical (PHY) layer message, and a PHY layer of the first terminal device indicates, to the MAC layer of the first terminal device, the activation time corresponding to the first resource set, or indicates the MAC layer of the first terminal device to disable the SL DRX; or the first message is an SL MAC control element (CE) message (the first UE 115 transmits the DTX configuration over the sidelink control signaling to one or more other UEs 115. Similarly, the first UE 115 transmits the DRX configuration over the sidelink control signaling to one or more other UEs 115 The sidelink control signaling may include the DTX configuration and the DRX configuration in the SCI or MAC-CE. In this way, the other UEs 115 may determine the on-duration periods 310 when the first UE 115 is transmitting information to other UEs 115 and receiving information from other UEs 115, [0122] and [0089). It 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 to incorporate the concept of DRX configuration via MAC-CE as disclosed by Wu into the method comprising activating a DRX mode comprising transmitting a message to another UE to indicate an active time period for a UE to monitor SCI as disclosed by Ryu and Zhao in order to improve the method and provide flexible means of indicating resources for sidelink communication, such as via a MAC-CE message.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2, 5 is 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Hong (US 2023/0156857) disclosing receiving, from a base station or another UE, sidelink discontinuous reception (DRX) configuration information; configuring a sidelink DRX parameter using the sidelink DRX configuration information; receiving, from another UE, a sidelink command MAC control element (CE); and controlling a PSCCH transmission or reception operation not to be performed by stopping the sidelink DRX parameter on the basis of the sidelink command MAC CE (abstract)
Zhao et al. (US 12520373) disclosing a first terminal device acquiring first discontinuous reception (DRX) configuration information, the first DRX configuration information being used for determining a continuously monitoring duration of a second terminal device, and the first terminal device sending the sidelink data to the second terminal device within the continuously monitoring duration of the second terminal device (abstract)
Wu et al. (US 2021/0051587) disclosing each of UE1-UEn may transmit a MAC-CE communication, an SCI communication, an RRC communication, a mac-config as part of a PC5RRCReconfig communication, and/or another type of sidelink communication that indicates the jointly configured sidelink DRX configurations associated with the UE ([0070])
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NGUYEN HOANG NGO whose telephone number is (571)272-8398. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.
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/NGUYEN H NGO/Examiner, Art Unit 2473