DETAILED ACTION
The present Office action is in response to the application filed on 28 FEBRUARY 2024.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) submitted on 02/28/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the Information Disclosure Statement is being considered by the Examiner.
Response to Amendment
Claims have been preliminarily amended upon filing. Claims 11-13 have been cancelled. No claims have been added. Claims 1-10 and 14 are pending and herein examined.
Claim Objections
Claim 9 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 9, l. 3, “[…] the SL DRX is not be performed” should read --[…] the SL DRX is not --
Appropriate correction is required.
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-10 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharp, “Summary of [POST114-e][704][V2X/SL] How to make sure Rel-16 UEs not supporting SL DRX are not involved in SL communication in DRX manner (Sharp)”, August 2021 (hereinafter “Sharp”) in view of vivo, “Left issues on SL DRX”, May 2021 (hereinafter “vivo”), and further in view of WO 2021/139621 A1 (hereinafter “Lin”).
Regarding claim 1, Sharp discloses a method of a second user equipment (UE) for receiving sidelink data in a wireless communication system (p. 28, section 2.4.1, Views regarding pool separation discloses Rel-17 RX UE and SL transmission), the method comprising:
receiving, (p. 28, section 2.4.1, Views regarding pool separation discloses “A RX pool can be configured as one of the following to a Rel-17 UE […] SL DRX enabled […] SL DRX disabled”);
receiving, from a first UE, sidelink control information (SCI) (p. 2, section 2.2.1 General describes RX UE monitoring of SCI); and
receiving, from the first UE, the sidelink data based on the SCI (p. 2, section 2.2.1 General describes RX UE monitoring of SCI, which is set for the purpose of receiving data compliance therewith),
wherein based on a resource pool including the slot in which the SCI is received, whether to perform an operation related to the SL DRX is determined (p. 28, section 2.4.1, Views regarding pool separation discloses ““SL DRX enabled”: a Rel-17 Rx UE monitors slots in the RX pool only during SL DRX active time (i.e., “normal” SL DRX behavior) [¶] “SL DRX disabled”: a Rel-17 RX UE monitors all slots in the RX pool, even for slots falling into SL DRX inactive time (i.e. Rel-16 RX UE behavior)”).
Sharp fails to expressly disclose a base station, and
wherein based on a slot in which the SCI is received, an active time related to sidelink (SL) discontinuous reception (DRX) is determined.
However, vivo teaches wherein based on a slot in which the SCI is received, an active time related to sidelink (SL) discontinuous reception (DRX) is determined (pp. 1-2, section 1. Introduction, agreement 11, “the RX UE (re)starts the inactivity timer in the first slot after SCI (SCI1+SCI2).” Note, the Introduction describes the agreements for SL DRX timer details).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have activated a time based on a slot in which SCI is received, as taught by vivo (p. 1), in Sharp’s invention. One would have been motivated to modify Sharp’s invention, by incorporating vivo’s invention, to comply with 3GPP standards for improving SL DRX configurations (Vivo: p. 1).
Sharp and vivo fail to expressly disclose a base station.
However, Lin teaches a base station ([0011], “wherein the SL DRX configuration set is determined based on one of the following: one or more types of one or more SL services which the UE is participating with the peer UEs; one or more SL DRX configurations received from the peer UEs; and control information received from a Base Station (BS)”).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have used a base station to transmit data, as taught by Lin ([0011]), in Sharp and vivo’s invention. One would have been motivated to modify Sharp and vivo’s invention, by incorporating Lin’s invention, because it is an obvious use of a known structural component being applied to a method for ready for improvement and reduction to practice (MPEP § 2143(I)(D)). Sharp and vivo are technical documents and do not disclose all the structural components, for which Lin is relied upon and found to be obvious for implementing in a real-world environment.
Regarding claim 2, Sharp, vivo, and Lin disclose every limitation of claim 1, as outlined above. Additionally, Sharp discloses wherein the configuration information includes information for at least one of i) a resource pool in which the SL DRX is supported and/or ii) a resource pool in which the SL DRX is not supported (p. 28, section 2.4.1, Views regarding pool separation discloses “A RX pool can be configured as one of the following to a Rel-17 UE […] “SL DRX enabled” […] “SL DRX disabled””).
Regarding claim 3, Sharp, vivo, and Lin disclose every limitation of claim 1, as outlined above. Additionally, Sharp discloses wherein based on the resource pool including the slot in which the SCI is received being the resource pool in which the SL DRX is supported, the operation related to the SL DRX is performed (p. 28, section 2.4.1, Views regarding pool separation discloses ““SL DRX enabled”: a Rel-17 RX UE monitors slots in the RX pool only during SL DRX active time (i.e. “normal” SL DRX behavior)”).
Regarding claim 4, Sharp, vivo, and Lin disclose every limitation of claim 3, as outlined above. Additionally, vivo discloses wherein the active time related to the SL DRX includes a time duration in which a pre-configured SL DRX timer is running, and wherein the pre-configured SL DRX timer includes at least one of i) an SL DRX Onduration timer, ii) an SL DRX inactivity timer, and/or iii) an SL DRX retransmission timer (pp. 1-2, section 1. Introduction describes a plurality on timers, such as agreement 27, “The SL active time of the RX UE includes the time in which any of its applicable sl-drx-OnDuration(s), sl-DRXInactivityTimer(s), or sl-drx-RetransmissionTimer(s) are running”). The same motivation of claim 1 applies to claim 4.
Regarding claim 5, Sharp, vivo, and Lin disclose every limitation of claim 4, as outlined above. Additionally, vivo discloses further comprising: receiving, from the base station, SL DRX configuration information, wherein the SL DRX configuration information includes information for the pre-configured SL DRX timer (The entire document describes configurations of SL DRX, see each agreement in section 1. Introduction, pp. 1-2. Also, proposals 1, 5, 12, and 13 describe pre-configured configurations). The same motivation of claim 1 applies to claim 5.
Regarding claim 6, Sharp, vivo, and Lin disclose every limitation of claim 4, as outlined above. Additionally, vivo discloses wherein based on (i) the resource pool including the slot in which the SCI is received being the resource pool in which the SL DRX is supported, and ii) a transmission of the sidelink data scheduled by the SCI being a new sidelink transmission, the SL DRX inactivity timer is started after the slot in which the SCI is received (pp. 1-2, section 1. Introduction, agreement 11, “the RX UE (re)starts the inactivity timer in the first slot after SCI (SCI1+SCI2) reception.” Note, the rejection builds upon the resource pool teachings on Sharp, as outlined in claim 1). The same motivation of claim 1 applies to claim 6.
Regarding claim 7, Sharp, vivo, and Lin disclose every limitation of claim 6, as outlined above. Additionally, vivo disclose wherein based on i) the SL DRX HARQ RTT timer related to a retransmission of the sidelink data being started, and ii) a first slot within a time duration, in which the SL DRX HARQ RTT timer is running, belonging to the resource pool in which the SL DRX is not supported, the monitoring related to the SCI is performed in the first slot (pp. 1-2, section 1. Introduction, agreements 11, 18-27 discuss SL DRX HARQ RTT timing and retransmission timer/resources. See Proposal 5 in pp. 4-5). The same motivation of claim 1 applies to claim 7.
Regarding claim 8, Sharp, vivo, and Lin disclose every limitation of claim 6, as outlined above. Additionally, vivo discloses wherein based on i) the SL DRX HARQ RTT timer related to a retransmission of the sidelink data being started, and ii) a second slot within a time duration, in which the SL DRX HARQ RTT timer is running, belonging to the resource pool in which the SL DRX is supported, a monitoring related to the SCI for the data reception is skipped in the second slot (pp. 1-2, section 1. Introduction, agreements 11, 18-27 discuss SL DRX HARQ RTT timing and retransmission timer/resources. See Proposal 5 in pp. 4-5). The same motivation of claim 1 applies to claim 8.
Regarding claim 9, Sharp, vivo, and Lin disclose every limitation of claim 3, as outlined above. Additionally, Sharp discloses wherein based on the resource pool including the slot in which the SCI is received being the resource pool in which the SL DRX is not supported, the operation related to the SL DRX is not be performed (p. 28, section 2.4.1, Views regarding pool separation discloses ““SL DRX disabled”: a Rel-17 RX UE monitors all slots in the RX pool, even for slots falling into SL DRX inactive time (i.e. Rel-16 RX UE behaviour)”).
Regarding claim 10, the limitations are the same as those in claim 1; however, written in machine form instead of process form. Therefore, the same rationale of claim 1 applies equally as well to claim 10. Additionally, Lin discloses one or more transceivers (FIG. 4, wireless transceiver 10); one or more processors configured to control the one or more transceivers (FIG. 4, controller 20. [0045], “The controller 20 may be a general-purpose processor […] controlling the wireless transceiver 10”); and one or more memories operably connected to the one or more processors (FIG. 4, storage device 30 coupled to controller 20), wherein the one or more memories are configured to store instructions performing operations being executed by the one or more processors ([0045], “The controller 20 […] storing and retrieving data (e.g., program code) to and from the storage device 30.” [0049], “The storage device 30 may be a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium […] for storing data, instructions, and/or program code of applications, communication protocols, and/or the method for UE -coordination based resource allocation for Sidelink communication”). The same motivation of claim 1 applies to claim 10.
Regarding claim 14, the limitations are the same as those in claim 10. Therefore, the same rationale of claim 10 applies equally as well to claim 14.
Conclusion
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/STUART D BENNETT/Examiner, Art Unit 2481