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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 7/14/2026 has been entered.
Claims 21-40 are pending.
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.
Claim(s) 21, 25-29, and 33-37 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 3GPP TR 23.776 v2.0.0, “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Study on architecture enhancements for 3GPP support of advanced Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) services; Phase 2 (Release 17), hereinafter TR 23.776, in view of Park et al. (US Pub. No. 2022/0159679).
Regarding claims 21 and 29, TR 23.776 discloses a first wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) (section 5.1: UE), comprising a transceiver (all figures: UE has transceiver to communicate with RAN and/or other UEs) and one or more processors (UE has processor(s) to process all the steps), a method performed by a first wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU), the method comprising:
receiving, from a policy control function (PCF), PC5 discontinuous reception (DRX) information (page 13, figure 6.2.2-1 step 1a. Provision PC5 DRX pattern set; second paragraph: “1a. UEs are (pre-)configured with the PC5 DRX related parameters including a set of application PC5 DRX patterns from which UEs can select. The PC5 DRX configuration provided by the PCF),
wherein the PC5 DRX information associates a PC5 DRX cycle with corresponding application layer information (page 12 third paragraph: PC5 DRX pattern includes information about ON/OFF period; figure 6.2.2-1 step 2 and step 3: last paragraph and page 14 2nd paragraph: UE selects one or more PC5 DRX patterns from the configured pattern set based on application layer information/requirements. Thus, PC5 DRX information associates a PC5 DRX on/off cycle with corresponding application layer requirements);
determining, based on the PCS DRX information and the application layer information received by the first WTRU from an application layer, one or more first PC5 DRX parameters (page 12 third paragraph: PC5 DRX pattern includes information about ON/OFF period; figure 6.2.2-1 step 2 and step 3: last paragraph and page 14 2nd paragraph: UE selects one or more PC5 DRX patterns from the configured pattern set based on application layer information/requirements. The one or more PC5 DRX parameter could be on/off period and/or QoS parameters as disclosed in page 12 fourth paragraph);
sending information to a second WTRU (figure 6.2.2-1 step 7; page 14 step 7).
TR 23.776 (solution #2) does not explicitly disclose sending or receiving, by the first WTRU, negotiation information to perform a negotiation with a second WTRU;
determining, based on the negotiation with the second WTRU and the DRX information, one or more second PC5 DRX parameters; and
configuring, based on the one or more second PC5 DRX parameters, a PCS interface.
However, TR 23.776’s solution #2, page 14 Note 2 teaches a potential PC5 DRX negotiations for single unicast connection with other UEs.
TR 23.776’s solution #3: Solution for KI#1 to negotiate a PC5 DRX for Unicast communication in pages 15-17 discloses
sending or receiving, by the first WTRU, negotiation information to perform a negotiation with a second WTRU (figure 6.3.2-1 steps 4 and 5; page 16 steps 4 and 5: UE AS layer performs PC5 DRX parameter negotiation with UE2);
determining, based on the negotiation with the second WTRU and the DRX information, one or more second PC5 DRX parameters (figure 6.3.2-1 steps 4 and 5; page 16 steps 4, 5, and 7: PC5 DRX parameter2 is provided to UE1 by UE2); and
configuring, based on the one or more second PC5 DRX parameters, a PC5 interface (figure 6.3.2-1 steps 7-9; page 17 steps 7-8, and 9: UE1 maps new V2X service types with existing PC5 DRX parameters for communication with UE2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in TR 23.766 sending or receiving, by the first WTRU, negotiation information to perform a negotiation with a second WTRU; determining, based on the negotiation with the second WTRU and the DRX information, one or more second PC5 DRX parameters; and configuring, based on the one or more second PC5 DRX parameters, a PCS interface.
The motivation would have been for Key Issue #1 (Support of QoS aware NR PC5 power efficiency for pedestrians UEs) (section 5.1 and page 15 first paragraph under section 6.3.1).
TR 23.766 does not teach receiving a PC5 DRX information mapping a PC5 DRX cycle to corresponding application layer information.
However, in the same field of sidelink DRX, Park discloses receiving a PC5 DRX information maps a PC5 DRX cycle to corresponding application layer information (figure 11 and paragraph 153: V2X application layer of an UE receives, from a V2X application server, sidelink DRX configuration which maps an SL application service to the SL DRX configuration. The UE then broadcasts the received SL DRX configuration to its neighbor UE for sidelink communication).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in TR 23.766 receiving a PC5 DRX information mapping a PC5 DRX cycle to corresponding application layer information.
The motivation would have been for application provisioning service performed/managed by core network (application server) (paragraph 153).
Regarding claims 25 and 33, all limitations of claims 21 and 29 are disclosed above. TR 23.776 further teaches PC5 DRX information is determined based on one or more quality of service (QoS) parameters and the PC5 DRX cycle is associated with the corresponding application layer information based on the one or more QoS parameters (page 12 section 6.2.1 third and fourth paragraphs: On/off period for DRX cycle, PC5 DRX pattern set take into account QoS requirements of V2X service type. figure 6.2.2-1 step 2 and step 3: last paragraph and page 14 2nd paragraph: UE selects one or more PC5 DRX patterns from the configured pattern set based on application layer information/requirements. The one or more PC5 DRX parameter could be on/off period and/or QoS parameters as disclosed in page 12 fourth paragraph).
Regarding claims 26 and 34, all limitations of claims 21 and 29 are disclosed above. TR 23.776 further teaches the one or more second PC5 DRX parameters comprise a service type (section 6.3.1 “to make the PC5 DRX more flexible and enable V2X services…”).
Regarding claims 27 and 35, all limitations of claims 21 and 29 are disclosed above. TR 23.776 further teaches the PCS5 interface comprises one or more PC5 DRX triggers (section 6.3.1 “PC5 DRX negotiation should be triggered by the QoS flow establishment).
Regarding claims 28 and 36, all limitations of claims 27 and 35 are disclosed above. TR 23.776 further teaches the one or more PC5 DRX triggers comprise a power saving mode parameter (section 5.1 Key issue #1; support of QoS aware NR PC5 power efficiency for pedestrian UEs).
Claim 37 is rejected similarly as claim 21 above. TR 23.776 does not teach but Park discloses a terminal with one or more processors; and memory coupled with the one or more processors, the memory storing executable instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to effectuate operations (paragraphs 32 and 33).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in TR 23.776 one or more processors; and memory coupled with the one or more processors, the memory storing executable instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to effectuate operations.
The motivation would have been to provide terminal/UE with processing power to perform its functionality as designed.
Claim(s) 22, 23, 30, 31, and 38-39 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 3GPP TR 23.776 v2.0.0, “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Study on architecture enhancements for 3GPP support of advanced Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) services; Phase 2 (Release 17), hereinafter TR 23.776, in view of Park et al. (US Pub. No. 2022/0159679) in view of Fu et al. (US Pub. No. 2023/0217347).
Regarding claims 22, 30, and 38, all limitations of claims 21, 29, and 37 are disclosed above. TR 23.776 does not teach but Fu discloses receive a user equipment route selection policy (URSP) rule indicating a type of application layer traffic (paragraphs 34-38, 40: traffic descriptor (TD) in the URSP rules including application identifiers; TD parameter corresponds to application data) associated with a PC5 link (paragraph 26: V2V communication); and route application traffic through the PC5 link based on the URSP rule (paragraph 41).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in TR 23.776 receive a user equipment route selection policy (URSP) rule indicating a type of application layer traffic associated with a PC5 link; and route application traffic through the PC5 link based on the URSP rule.
The motivation would have been to route data according to the provided URSP (paragraph 23).
Regarding claims 23, 31, and 39, all limitations of claims 22, 30 and 37 are disclosed above. TR 23.776 does not teach but Fu discloses the URSP rule comprises a route selection descriptor (paragraphs 35 and 36: route selection descriptor (RSD) indication) and the application traffic is routed based on the route selection descriptor (paragraph 35).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement in TR 23.776 the URSP rule comprises a route selection descriptor and the application traffic is routed based on the route selection descriptor.
The motivation would have been to route data according to the provided URSP (paragraph 23).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 24, 32, and 40 are 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
TR 23.776 discloses concept of configuring PC5/sidelink discontinuous reception (DRX) interface. Claims 24, 32, and 40’s elements of a terminal transmitting a non-stratum message proposing/requesting an alternative international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) offset value to align Uu and PC5 DRX cycles, wherein the offset value is based on the PC5 DRX cycle and is used to determine a Uu paging occasion are not found in the art, or if they are found would contain too many disparate references to properly combine with TR 23.776.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 21-23, 25-31, and 33-39 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument (amended limitation of PC5 DRX information maps a PC5 DRX cycle to corresponding application layer information).
Applicant's arguments filed 7/14/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In pages 11-12 of Remark, regarding 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection of independent claims, the Applicant argues that 23.776 presents Solution #2 and Solution #3 as separate and distinct solutions to KI#1. There is no suggestion in the reference that one should take the first half of Solution #2 and combine it with the second half of Solution #3. Also, the procedural flows are fundamentally different and conflicting. Solution #2 is a "top-down" flow initiated by network configuration and Solution #3 is a "peer-to-peer" flow initiated by a QoS event at the UE level.” The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
In response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, figure 6.2.2-1 of TR 23.776’s solution #2 and figure 6.3.2-1 of solution #3 show communication for PC5 DRX between RAN and UE1 and between UE1 and UE2. Solution #2 discloses UE1 uses received DRX pattern(s) from RAN/PCF for PC5 communication with UE2. Solution #2 further teaches negotiation between UE1 and UE2 for DRX. Solution #3 discloses negotiation between UE1 and UE2 for PC5 DRX parameters. Thus, it would have been obvious to combine solution #2 and solution #3 to teach the claimed invention.
Conclusion
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/TITO Q PHAM/Examiner, Art Unit 2466
/FARUK HAMZA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2466
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