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 Arguments
Applicant's arguments have been fully considered but they are believed to be moot in view of the new grounds of rejection set forth below, citing the new reference TAKANO.
Please see rejections below for details.
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) 1-3,5-6,14-16,18,19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Publication 2018/0049259 A1 to Aminaka et al., in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0052796 A1 to Takano et al.
As to claim 1, Aminaka discloses A first user equipment (UE) for wireless communications, comprising: one or more memories storing processor-executable code; and one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the first UE to (Fig. 9, “remote UE 2”):
receive, from a second UE that is in an active mode (Fig. 9, “relay UE 1”), a sidelink message that comprises an identification of the second UE (Figs. 8-9, paragraphs 96-102: step 902: sync signal received at remote UE 2 [“first UE”] from relay UE 1 [“second UE” which is actively sending sync signals] that enables remote UE 2 to identify the sending relay UE1/second UE, teaching this limitation);
determine, subsequent to receipt of the identification of the second UE, to further communicate via sidelink communications with the second UE (Figs. 8-9, paragraphs 96-102, steps 902-903);
transmit an uplink message to a base station to trigger the base station to send a wake-up signal to the second UE, the uplink message comprising the identification of the second UE (Figs. 8-9, 5, paragraphs 77-85, 96-102, step 903: “sl communication request (include. Detected relay UE ID)”, teaching the recited “UL message”; further note that the “activation request 905” teaches “the base station to send a wake-up signal to the second UE”, since 905 requests second/relay UE 1 to start sidelink communications, thus teaching a broadest reasonable interpretation embodiment of “wake-up signal” since the second/relay UE 1 was not activated previously for SL communications and is now activated/awaken); and
communicate with the second UE after the second UE has re-entered the active mode for sidelink communications as a result of transmission of the uplink message (Figs. 8-9, paragraphs 96-102, steps 903-908, see discussion above).
Aminaka does not appear to explicitly disclose determine, while the relay device is in a sleep mode, to further communicate with the relay device; to trigger the base station to send, while the relay device is in the sleep mode, a wake-up signal to the relay device to trigger the relay device to re-enter the active mode for communications with the first UE from the sleep mode.
Takano discloses determine, while the relay device is in a sleep mode, to further communicate with the relay device (Fig. 10, paragraphs 135-142: steps 416, 420: “The relay device 30C operating in the sleep mode monitors the L1/L2 signaling according to the DRX cycle, and in the case an instruction to shift from the sleep mode to the active mode is issued in the L1/L2 signaling, shifts to the active mode (S420).”);
to trigger the base station to send, while the relay device is in the sleep mode, a wake-up signal to the relay device to trigger the relay device to re-enter the active mode for communications with the first UE from the sleep mode. (Fig. 10, paragraphs 135-142: steps 416, 420: “Since the relay mode 30C notified by the mobile terminal 20 is in the sleep mode, the control unit 142 of the base station 10 transmits a control signal indicating shift from the sleep mode to the active mode using the L1/L2 signaling (S416).”)
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate in, combine with or modify, Aminaka’s teaching with Takano’s teachings to reject this claim, due to the structural similarities between the relay/UE environments in both references, in particular, in view of the close correspondence between Aminaka’s “relay UE” and Takano’s “relay device”. In particular, Aminaka’s teaching of “determine, subsequent to receipt of the identification of the second UE, to further communicate via sidelink communications with the second UE” and Takano’s “determine, while the relay device is in a sleep mode, to further communicate with the relay device” may be combinable to a phosita, to reject “determine, subsequent to receipt of the identification of the second UE and while the second UE is in a sleep mode, to further communicate via sidelink communications with the second UE”. This is because, due to the correspondence between the “relay UE”/”second UE” and “relay device”, the above teaching in Aminaka may be further and additionally incorporated or imbued with Takano’s feature of “determine, while the relay device is in a sleep mode, to further communicate with the relay device”. Also, Aminaka’s teaching of “transmit an uplink message to a base station to trigger the base station to send a wake-up signal to the second UE, the uplink message comprising the identification of the second UE” and Takano’s “to trigger the base station to send, while the relay device is in the sleep mode, a wake-up signal to the relay device to trigger the relay device to re-enter the active mode for communications with the first UE from the sleep mode” may be combinable to a phosita, to reject “transmit an uplink message to a base station to trigger the base station to send, while the second UE is in the sleep mode, a wake-up signal to the second UE to trigger the second UE to re-enter the active mode for sidelink communication from the sleep mode, the uplink message comprising the identification of the second UE”. This is because, due to the correspondence between the “relay UE”/”second UE” and “relay device”, a phosita would have found it obvious to have the triggering take place while the “relay UE”/”second UE” is in the sleep mode. The cited references are directed to wireless communication infrastructures featuring relay elements. The suggestion/motivation would have been to improve resource allocation and signaling for communications featuring relays and relay communications (Aminaka, paragraphs 1-33; Takano, paragraphs 1-21 and Fig. 10). Furthermore, note that with regard to the claimed invention, especially the limitation above, all of the claimed elements have been shown to be known in the cited art, and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art as of and before the effective filing date.
As to claim 2, Aminaka and Takano teach the UE as in the parent claim 1.
Aminaka further discloses wherein, to transmit the uplink message, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the first UE to: transmit, in the uplink message, multiple identifications of multiple UEs with which the first UE is to communicate via the sidelink communications, the second UE being one of the multiple UEs. (Figs. 8-9, paragraphs 96-102, teaching the remote UE 2/first UE “attempts to receive a synchronization signal transmitted from any neighboring UEs” and PLMN 100/eNB 31 “selects a relay UE that should activate the SL communication …”, teaching to a PHOSITA that multiple UE IDs are transmitted by the remote UE2/first UE to PLMN 100/eNB 31, teaching this limitation).
As to claim 3, Aminaka and Takano teach the UE as in the parent claim 1.
Aminaka further discloses wherein, to transmit the uplink message, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the first UE to: transmit a scheduling request or a buffer status report as the uplink message (Figs. 8-9, paragraphs 96-102, “SL communication request 903” requests PLMN/eNB to schedule or allocate a relay UE, teaching an embodiment of this limitation )
As to claim 5, Aminaka and Takano teach the UE as in the parent claim 1.
Aminaka further discloses wherein: the sidelink communications comprise groupcast or unicast communications. (Figs. 8-9, paragraphs 96-102, 908: SL unicast communications between 1 and 2 )
As to claim 6, Aminaka and Takano teach the UE as in the parent claim 1.
Aminaka further discloses wherein the identification of the second UE is one of a layer 1 identifier, a layer 2 identifier, a layer 3 identifier. (Figs. 8-9, paragraphs 96-102, step 903: “sl communication request (include. Detected relay UE ID)”; further see paragraphs 1-21, disclosing the various standards governing the wireless environment in which the invention takes place, such standards applicable to layers 1-3, thus teaching to a PHOSITA that the UE ID is layer 1, 2, or 3).
As to claim 14-16,18,19, see rejection for claims 1-3,5-6 above
Claim(s) 4,17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Publication 2018/0049259 A1 to Aminaka et al., in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0052796 A1 to Takano et al., further in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2018/0206252 A1 to Thangarasa et al.
As to claim 4, Aminaka and Takano teach the UE as in the parent claim 1.
Aminaka further discloses wherein, to receive the sidelink message, the one or more processors are individually or collectively operable to execute the code to cause the first UE to: receive an indication of parameters associated with communications at the second UE. (Figs. 8-9, paragraphs 96-102, step 902).
Aminaka does not appear to explicitly disclose indication of a discontinuous reception cycle associated with communications at the second UE.
Thangarasa discloses indication of a discontinuous reception cycle associated with communications at the second UE (Fig. 3, paragraphs 104-109, disclosing DRX cycle parameters associated with PROSE communication, i.e., a D2D communication, teaching this limitation).
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate in, combine or modify, Aminaka’s teaching above with Thangarasa’s teachings to reject this claim. Specifically, it would have been obvious to a PHOSITA that Thangarasa’s PROSE DRX parameters are an example of d2d/sidelink parameters and thus could be sent through the sl message 902 in Aminaka, to reject this claim. The cited references are directed to wireless communication infrastructures. The suggestion/motivation would have been to improve resource allocation and signaling for wireless communications (Thangarasa, paragraphs 1-33; Aminaka, paragraphs 1-33; Takano, paragraphs 1-21). Furthermore, note that with regard to the claimed invention, especially the limitation above, all of the claimed elements have been shown to be known in the cited art, and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions and the combination would have yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art as of and before the effective filing date.
As to claim 17, see rejection for claim 4 above
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-13 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
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHI TANG P CHENG whose telephone number is (571)272-9021. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9:30AM - 6PM.
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/CHI TANG P CHENG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463