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 .
This action is in response to the application filed on January 17, 2024
Claims 1-18, 22 and 23 are under examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/17/2024, 10/03/2024 and 03/21/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-18, 22 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by 3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting #113bis Electronic R2-2103470 hereinafter “(R2-2103470).”
As per Claim 1 R2-2103470 teaches an auxiliary configuration method, performed by a terminal device, comprising: sending sidelink Discontinuous Reception (DRX) information to a network device, wherein the sidelink DRX information comprises at least one of sidelink DRX information of a designated sidelink address or sidelink DRX information of a designated sending mode (proposal 2, 4 and 5: UE provides assistance information to gNB on DRX configuration/ActiveTime information per SL destination/service. In order to allow gNB to efficiently schedule SL resources (mode 1) to the Tx UE, the gNB should be aware of the time slots the Tx UE is in ActiveTime for a specific destination, e.g. SL service.gNB aligning UE's Uu DRX DRX ActiveTime UE should provide to the gNB information on its SL
DRX configuration, i.e. information on the SL ActiveTime. To ensure that UE is in DRX ActiveTime on Uu and monitoring PDCCH for SL DCI(s) while UE is receiving/transmitting SL data on the PC5 interface, some coordination between the time periods where UE is active (transmit/receive) on the PC5 interface and UE's Uu DRX settings/configurations is required. Therefore it should be discussed further whether UE should report within the UE assistance information (UAI) or Sidelink UE information (SUI) to the gNB timing information
indicating when UE is in ActiveTime on the PC5 interface, i.e. transmission/receiving SL data, e.g. SL DRX ).
As per Claim 2 R2-2103470 teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the designated sidelink address comprises at least one of: a broadcast address, a groupcast address, or a unicast address (Parge2 Proposal 7: For Unicast, Rx UE could send its preferred PC5 DRX configuration to Tx UE, which is further propagated to the gNB. gNB can configure PC5/Uu DRX configuration for Tx UE, which considers the alignment ).
As per Claim 3 R2-2103470 teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the designated sidelink address satisfies at least one of following conditions: the terminal device receiving information sent by the designated sidelink address; the terminal device receiving information sent by the designated sidelink address and the terminal device not sending the designated sidelink address to the network device; the terminal device receiving information sent by the designated sidelink address and the information being received using a sidelink DRX mechanism; or the terminal device receiving information sent by the designated sidelink address, the information being received using the sidelink DRX mechanism, and the terminal device not sending the designated sidelink address to the network device (Page 2 Proposal 5 and 7: For cases when SL data transmission/reception activity, e.g. also referred to as SL DRX ActiveTime, is not coordinated with the DRX operation on Uu interface, there may be cases where Tx UE (using mode 1 resource allocation mode) is in sleep mode (DRX) on the Uu interface, i.e. not monitoring PDCCH, even though the UE is expected to receive SL resource allocations by the gNB for SL data transmission on the PC5 interface. Further for cases when the SL data transmission/reception activity on the PC5 interface is not aligned with the DRX operation on Uu interface, The ActiveTime on Uu interface may be unnecessarily extended, leading to some increased battery power consumption).
As per Claim 4 R2-2103470 teaches the method of claim 3, wherein the terminal device determines whether to send the designated sidelink address to the network device according to at least one of: whether the terminal device carries the designated sidelink address in a sidelink terminal device message sent to the network device; or whether the terminal device carries the sidelink address in a sidelink sending resource request sent to the network device (Page 2 Proposal 4, 5 and 6: Tx UE provides assistance information to gNB on DRX configuration/ActiveTime information per SL destination/service. In order to allow gNB to efficiently schedule SL resources (mode 1) to the Tx UE, the gNB For example if Tx UE reports a certain amount of data available for transmission for a specific destination, the gNB needs to know when the peer receiving UE(s) associated with this destination is in ActiveTime in order to allocate SL resources correspondingly. It should be noted that the sidelink BSR signalled to the gNB also reports the buffer status per destination. From a SL UE perspective there may be only one "common" ActiveTime which is basically the superposition of the ).
As per Claim 5 R2-2103470 teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the sidelink DRX information comprises at least one of: Quality of Service (QOS) characteristic information of a transmission service on the designated sidelink address; sidelink DRX configuration information on the designated sidelink address; first indication information for indicating whether the designated sidelink address uses a sidelink DRX mechanism; or second indication information for indicating whether a designated terminal device exists, wherein the designated terminal device receives information sent by the designated sidelink address and conforms to an R16 standard (Page 2 Proposal 3, 4: UE providing assistance information to gNB on timing information indicating when UE is active on the PC5 interface, i.e. transmission/receiving SL data, for aligning DRX configuration on Uu should be considered. Therefore it should be discussed further whether UE should report within the UE assistance information (UAI) or Sidelink UE information (SUI) to the gNB timing information indicating when UE is in ActiveTime on the PC5 interface, i.e. transmission/receiving SL data, e.g. SL DRX ).
As per Claim 6 R2-2103470 teaches the method of claim 5, wherein the QoS characteristic information comprises at least one of: QoS requirement information; or an index number in a PC5 QoS Identifier (PQI) list, wherein the index number has corresponding QoS requirement information (Page 2 Proposal 2 and 3: DRX related timers/states for controlling the DRX ActiveTime on the Uu interface should be updated based on SL data/control transmission/reception on the PC5 interface. In order to ensure that the UE is in ActiveTime on the Uu interface and monitor PDCCH for SL grants when SL data transmissions/reception occurs on the PC5 interface, some linkage between the ActiveTime on Uu and the sidelink data activity on the PC5 interface should be introduced. DRX related timers/states controlling the DRX ActiveTime on the Uu interface should be updated based on SL data/control transmission/reception on the PC5 interface.).
As per Claim 7 R2-2103470 teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the designated sending mode comprises at least one of: a broadcast sending mode, a groupcast sending mode, or a unicast sending mode (Page 2 Proposal 6 and 7: Sidelink DRX for broadcast, groupcast, and unicast RAN2 Define on- and off-durations in sidelink and specify the corresponding UE procedure Specify mechanism aiming to align sidelink DRX wake-up time among the UEs communicating with each other Specify mechanism aiming to align sidelink DRX wake-up time with Uu DRX wake-up time in an in-coverage UE. ).
As per Claim 8 R2-2103470 teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the sidelink DRX information of the designated sending mode is determined according to sidelink DRX information of a designated sidelink address having the designated sending mode (Page 2 Proposal 3 and 4: In order to allow gNB aligning UE's Uu DRX DRX ActiveTime UE should provide to the gNB information on its SL DRX configuration, i.e. information on the SL ActiveTime. To ensure that UE is in DRX ActiveTime on Uu and monitoring PDCCH for SL DCI(s) while UE is receiving/transmitting SL data on the PC5 interface, some coordination between the time periods where UE is active (transmit/receive) on the PC5 interface and UE's Uu DRX settings/configurations is required. Therefore it should be discussed further whether UE should report within the UE assistance information (UAI) or Sidelink UE information (SUI) to the gNB timing information indicating when UE is in ActiveTime on the PC5 interface, i.e. transmission/receiving SL data, e.g. SL DRX configuration(s) ).
As per Claim 9 R2-2103470 teaches the method of claim 8, wherein the sidelink DRX information of the designated sending mode is a collection of the sidelink DRX information of the designated sidelink address having the designated sending mode (Page 2 Proposal 4 Introduction: Sidelink DRX for broadcast, groupcast, and unicast RAN2 Define on- and off-durations in sidelink and specify the corresponding UE procedure Specify mechanism aiming to align sidelink DRX wake-up time among the UEs communicating with each other Specify mechanism aiming to align sidelink DRX wake-up time with Uu DRX wake-up time in an in-coverage UE).
Claims 10-18,22 and 23 are the device claims corresponding to the terminal device claims 1-9 that have been rejected above. Applicant attention is directed to the rejection of claims 1-9. Claims 10-18,22 and 23 are rejected under the same rational as claims 1-9.
Examiner’s Note
Examiner is open for discussion if the applicant’s representative need further clarifications.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. (See form 892).
Conclusion
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/SYED ALI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463