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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Application
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 .
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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 1-3, 8-10, 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Lee et al (US Pub # 2021/0385805 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Lee discloses “A method for wireless communication, wherein the method is performed by a terminal device” (see Lee figure 2 and ¶ 0015; wireless terminal device and wireless communication system); “the terminal device is a remote terminal or a relay terminal” (see Lee ¶ 0012); and the method comprises “reporting first sidelink UE information corresponding to at least one relay service to a network device” (see Lee fig. 12 and ¶ 0159; when UE1 is in RRC_CONNECTED, UE1 transmits, to the network (e.g., eNB and/or gNB) a first Sidelink UE Information message to request allowance of relaying sidelink control information); and “wherein the first sidelink UE information is configured to obtain at least one of a configuration of a Radio Bear (RB) or a transmission resource of the at least one relay service” (Pan ¶s 0159 - 0160; Upon receiving the first Sidelink UE Information message, the gNB indicates to the UE1 that relaying sidelink control information is allowed via, for example, RRC reconfiguration ).
Regarding claim 2, claim 1 is incorporated as stated above. In addition, Lee further discloses “wherein reporting the first sidelink UE information corresponding to the at least one relay service to the network device comprises: in a case that a third condition is met, reporting the first sidelink UE information to the network device, wherein the third condition comprises any one of following: a sidelink between the terminal device and a peer terminal being established successfully; a sidelink between the terminal device and a peer terminal being resumed; an interest of the terminal device being changed; information of a Quality of Service (QoS) flow corresponding to a relay service in the at least one relay service being changed; capability information of a peer terminal being received from the peer terminal; a Radio Link Control (RLC) mode of a peer terminal being changed; or a System Information Block (SIB) used for providing a sidelink configuration being changed”; (see Lee ¶ 0124; A UE capable of sidelink communication that is in RRC_CONNECTED may initiate sidelink UE information transmission procedure to indicate that the UE is (interested in) receiving sidelink communication in several cases including upon successful connection establishment, upon change of interest, upon change to a PCell broadcasting SystemInformationBlockType18 or SystemInformationBlockType19 or SystemInformationBlockType21 including sl-V2X-ConfigCommon).
Regarding claim 3, claim 1 is incorporated as stated above. In addition, Lee further discloses “reporting second sidelink UE information corresponding to at least one sidelink service to the network device, wherein the second sidelink UE information is configured to obtain at least one of a configuration of a RB or a transmission resource of the at least one sidelink service.”; (Pan fig. 12 and ¶ 0166; transmitting or reporting third sidelink UE information messages message to the gNB ).
Claim 8 is the terminal device claim corresponding to the method claim 1 that has been rejected above. Applicant attention is directed to the rejection of claim 1. Claim 8 is rejected under the same rational as claim 1.
in addition, Lee discloses “A terminal device, wherein the terminal device is a remote terminal or a relay terminal, and the terminal device comprises a processor and a memory, wherein the memory is configured to store computer programs” (see Lee figs 1, 2).
Claim 9 is the terminal device claim corresponding to the method claim 2 that has been rejected above. Applicant attention is directed to the rejection of claim 2. Claim 9 is rejected under the same rational as claim 2.
Claim 10 is the terminal device claim corresponding to the method claim 3 that has been rejected above. Applicant attention is directed to the rejection of claim 3. Claim 10 is rejected under the same rational as claim 3.
Regarding claim 15, Lee discloses “A network device comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the memory is configured to store computer programs” (see Lee figure 1); A network device comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the memory is configured to store computer programs, and the processor is configured to invoke and run the computer programs stored in the memory to control the network device to “receive first sidelink UE information corresponding to at least one relay service transmitted by a terminal device” (see Lee Col 33 , lines 50-60; The UE1 send a sidelink UE information message to the gNB, the sidelink UE information includes at least UE2’s L2ID in destination list); and “obtain at least one of a configuration of a Radio Bear (RB) or a transmission resource of the at least one relay service according to the first sidelink UE information” (Pan Col 33 , lines 50-65; after receiving the sidelink UE information message, the gNB will configure the UE1 sidelink (SL) Data Radio Bearer (DRB) configuration or SL RLC configuration).
Claim 16 is the network device claim corresponding to the method claim 3 that has been rejected above. Applicant attention is directed to the rejection of claim 3. Claim 16 is rejected under the same rational as claim 3.
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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 6-7, 13-14 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 USC 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lee et al (US Pub # 2021/0385805 A1)..
Most of the limitations of claim 6 have been noted in the rejection of claim 1. Applicant’s attention is directed to the rejection of claim 1 above. Lee does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein the first sidelink UE information comprises at least one of following: an identity (ID) of destination address corresponding to the first sidelink UE information; a relay type of each of the at least one relay service; a type of the terminal device; an interested frequency point list of the destination address corresponding to the first sidelink UE information; or a list of synchronization reference information of various frequency points in the frequency point list. However, Lee discloses the third sidelink UE information comprises at least one of following: an identity (ID) of destination address corresponding to the first sidelink UE information; a relay type of each of the at least one relay service; a type of the terminal device; an interested frequency point list of the destination address corresponding to the first sidelink UE information; or a list of synchronization reference information of various frequency points in the frequency point list; (See Lee ¶ 0167; the third Sidelink UE information message may comprise SL-TxResourceReqList listing one or more SL-TxResourceReqs. Each SL-TxResourceReq may comprise destinationInfoList, carrierFreqCommTx, v2x-TypeTxSync, v2x-destinationInfoList, and/or Sidelink-UE-ID. The destinationInfoList indicates the destination(s) for relay or non-relay related one-to-one or one-to-many sidelink communication. The carrierFreqCommTx indicates the index of the frequency on which the UE is interested to transmit sidelink communication and/or V2X sidelink communication. The v2x-TypeTxSync indicates the synchronization reference used by the UE. The v2x-DestinationInfoList indicates the destinations for V2X sidelink communication. The Sidelink-UE-ID indicates ID of UE related to the SL-TxResourceRe ). ”. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of Lee before him or her, to modify the invention of Lee to include information, in the first sidelink UE information message, such as ID of the UE, frequency, destination list, synchronization reference. The suggestion for doing so would have been to improve transmission in a sidelink and allow the UE to transmit a resource request to a peer UE performing a sidelink communication with the UE, and receive a resource allocation from the network via the peer UE (¶ 0005).
Regarding claim 7, claim 6 is incorporated as stated above. In addition, Lee further discloses “wherein the ID of the destination address is an ID of a peer terminal, the relay type of each of the at least one relay service is a layer 2 relay type or a layer 3 relay type, and the type of the terminal device is a remote terminal or a relay terminal”; (see Lee ¶ 0166, ¶ 0167)
Claim 13 is the terminal device claim corresponding to the method claim 6 that has been rejected above. Applicant attention is directed to the rejection of claim 6. Claim 13 is rejected under the same rational as claim .
Claim 14 is the terminal device claim corresponding to the method claim 7 that has been rejected above. Applicant attention is directed to the rejection of claim 7. Claim 14 is rejected under the same rational as claim .
Claim 19 is the network device claim corresponding to the method claim 6 that has been rejected above. Applicant attention is directed to the rejection of claim 6. Claim 19 is rejected under the same rational as claim 6.
Claim 20 is the network device claim corresponding to the method claim 7 that has been rejected above. Applicant attention is directed to the rejection of claim 7. Claim 20 is rejected under the same rational as claim 7.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 5, 11, 12, 17 and 18 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
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/KHALED M KASSIM/supervisory patent examiner, Art Unit 2475