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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on March 04, 2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings were received on March 04, 2024. These drawings are acceptable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because “a computer-readable medium” is broadly and reasonably interpreted as either transitory or non-transitory computer-readable medium. Since “transitory computer readable medium” such as signal is non-statutory. Therefore, it is rejected under 101. To overcome this rejection, the Examiner respectfully suggests the Applicant to amend claim language by adding the term “non-transitory” in front of the phrase “computer-readable medium”.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 6, 8, 13, and 15-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang et al. (hereinafter “Huang”, US 2022/0338282) in view of Roth-Mandut et al. (hereinafter “Roth-Mandut”, US 2021/0250957).
Regarding claims 1, 8, and 16, Huang discloses a method performed by a user equipment (UE) (i.e., first user terminal 20 as shown in Fig. 3), a user equipment, and a computer-readable medium, comprising:
requesting a base station (gNB) to transmit a sidelink resource for a sidelink communication (i.e., the first user terminal 20 requests access network device 10 to schedule a communication resource to obtain a communication resource pool for establishing an initial connection as described in paragraphs 0169-0170);
determining whether an available sidelink resource is received from the gNB (i.e., when the first user terminal 20 does not establish an RRC connection to the access network device 10 as described in paragraphs 0169-0170);
performing the sidelink communication using a pre-configured sidelink resource for the sidelink communication based on a determination that the pre-configured sidelink resource is available (i.e., the first user terminal 20 selects a pre-configured communication resource pool set for establishing an initial connection as described in paragraphs 0169-0170).
Huang, however, does not expressly disclose:
based on a determination that the available sidelink resource is not received from the gNB.
In a similar endeavor, Roth-Mandut discloses sidelink resource pool/BWP allocation based on QoS. Roth-Mandut also discloses:
based on a determination that the available sidelink resource is not received from the gNB (i.e., when the UE is not served by the base station, are not connected to the base station, are when no SL resource allocation configuration or assistance is provided by the base station as described in paragraph 0046).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to optimize and have a better control of the network resources.
Regarding claims 6 and 13, Huang and Roth-Mandut disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Roth-Mandut also discloses wherein the available sidelink resource comprises TxPoolSelectedNormal information corresponding to the sidelink communication or the available sidelink resource matches a requirement of quality of service (QOS) stream (i.e., configuring the SL based on the QoS as described in paragraphs 0052-0058).
Regarding claim 15, Huang discloses a system comprising:
a user equipment (UE) (i.e., first user terminal 20 as shown in Fig. 3);
a base station (gNB) (i.e., access network device 10 as shown in Fig. 3), wherein the UE is configured to:
request the gNB to transmit a sidelink resource for a sidelink communication; determine whether an available sidelink resource is received from the gNB (i.e., the first user terminal 20 requests access network device 10 to schedule a communication resource to obtain a communication resource pool for establishing an initial connection as described in paragraphs 0169-0170);
perform the sidelink communication using a pre-configured sidelink resource for the sidelink communication based on a determination that the pre-configured sidelink resource is available (i.e., the first user terminal 20 selects a pre-configured communication resource pool set for establishing an initial connection when the first user terminal 20 does not establish an RRC connection to the access network device 10 as described in paragraphs 0169-0170).
Huang, however, does not expressly disclose:
based on a determination that the available sidelink resource is not received from the gNB.
In a similar endeavor, Roth-Mandut discloses sidelink resource pool/BWP allocation based on QoS. Roth-Mandut also discloses:
based on a determination that the available sidelink resource is not received from the gNB (i.e., when the UE is not served by the base station, are not connected to the base station, are when no SL resource allocation configuration or assistance is provided by the base station as described in paragraph 0046).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to optimize and have a better control of the network resources.
Claim(s) 2 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Huang in view of Roth-Mandut, and further in view of Wu (US 2022/0361273).
Regarding claims 2 and 9, Huang and Roth-Mandut disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above, but do not expressly disclose features of these claims.
In a similar endeavor, Wu discloses managing sidelink and non-sidelink information. Wu also discloses wherein the requesting the gNB to transmit the sidelink resource for the sidelink communication comprises:
requesting the gNB for RRC connection, and requesting the gNB to transmit the sidelink resource based on a radio resource control (RRC) state of the UE being an idle state or an inactive state and based on system information not including an available sidelink resource (i.e., when the UE is in RRC_Idle or RRC_Inactive, the UE requests via dedicated signaling or system information block as described in paragraph 0037); and
requesting the gNB to transmit the sidelink resource directly based on the RRC state of the UE being a connected state (i.e., when the UE is in RRC_Connected state, the UE sends the request to RAN 105 as described in paragraph 0037).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to provide configured grant assistance information for the sidelink communication.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5, 7, 10-12, and 14 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WAYNE CAI whose telephone number is (571)272-7798. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday, 7:00 AM-5:00 PM.
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/Wayne H Cai/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644