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 .
Introduction
This is a response to the applicant’s filing filed on 03/21/2024. In virtue of this filing, claims 1-13 are currently presented in the instant application.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 05/20/2024 and 08/14/2025 has been considered by Examiner and made of record in the application file.
Drawings
The drawing submitted on 03/21/2024 has been considered by Examiner and made of record in the application file.
Specification
The specification submitted on 03/21/2024 has been considered by Examiner and made of record in the application file.
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 13 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 claims recite an embodiment of the applicants' invention directed towards " A non-volatile computer-readable storage medium.....” as recites in claim 13. It is noted, however, the specification (page 41, PAR [209]) provides open-ended examples of storage medium and is silent with respect to “A non-transitory storage medium" Thus, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, "Storage medium" considered as a whole would be directed towards non-statutory mediums such as signals/carrier waves. The specification fails to define A storage medium excludes a signals/carrier waves, such as transitory signal as per the USPTO notice signed by David Kapposon 1/26/2010: "The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is obliged to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification during proceedings before the USPTO. See In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319(Fed. Cir. 1989) (during patent examination the pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow). The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a storage medium (also called machine readable medium and other such variations) typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable media, particularly when the specification is silent. See MPEP 2111.01. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claim must be rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter. See In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 1356-57 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (transitory embodiments are not directed to statutory subject matter) and Interim Examination Instructions for Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility Under 35 U.S.C.j101, Aug. 24,2009; p. 2."
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 10 and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 1-2, 10 and 12-13, the recites “wherein based on that….”, it is unclear what it refers to in the claims and what kind/type of behavior is required to practice the invention. Therefore, render to claim to be vague and indefinite because it is not clear how the claim is bounded.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 6, 9-11 and 12-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over OZTURK et al. (US Pub. No.: 2023/0328689, hereinafter, “Ozturk”) in view of CHENG et al. (US Pub. No.: 2023/0224859, hereinafter, “Cheng”).
Regarding claims 1, 10 and 12-13, Ozturk teaches a remote user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system and method (see figures 4 and 10, UE 1000), the remote UE comprising:
at least one processor (see figure 10, UE 1000, [0150]); and
at least one computer memory operably connected to the at least one processor and configured to store instructions that, when executed, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:
establishing, by the remote UE, a connection with a relay UE (see figure 4, [0099, 0101-0104], remote UE, relay UE);
transitioning, by the remote UE, to a radio resource control (RRC) IDLE state (see figures 4 and 10, RRC state transition 1058, [0099, 0101-0104, 0163]); and
receiving, by the remote UE, a paging message through the relay UE (see figure 4, [0099, 0101-0104], remote UE, relay UE).
It should be noticed that Ozturk fails to teach paging monitoring of the remote UE is performed by the relay UE in an RRC CONNECTED state, and wherein based on that the relay UE does not have information related to the paging monitoring of the remote UE, the remote UE transmits the information related to the paging monitoring of the remote UE to the relay UE. However, Cheng teaches paging monitoring of the remote UE is performed by the relay UE in an RRC CONNECTED state, and wherein based on that the relay UE does not have information related to the paging monitoring of the remote UE, the remote UE transmits the information related to the paging monitoring of the remote UE to the relay UE (see figure 20, [0098-0099, 0104, 0107], paging may not be supported when the remote UE is in RRC IDLE mode and the relay UE is in RRC CONNECTED mode. It is clearly seen that the relay UE does not receive the paging message from remote UE. In order to monitor the remote UE, the remote UE may transmit information that the relay UE can use to calculate the remote UE's paging occasions in a sidelink message).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Cheng into view of Ozturk in order to provide for reduced power consumption at the relay UE, since the relay UE may not need to be active for paging occasions other than those associated with the relay UE as suggested by Cheng in [0107]).
Regarding claim 2, Cheng further teaches based on that the remote UE transitions from the RRC CONNECTED state to the RRC IDLE state, the relay UE does not have the information related to the paging monitoring of the remote UE (see figure 20, [0098-0099, 0104, 0107], paging may not be supported when the remote UE is in RRC IDLE mode and the relay UE is in RRC CONNECTED mode. It is clearly seen that the relay UE does not receive the paging message from remote UE. In order to monitor the remote UE, the remote UE may transmit information that the relay UE can use to calculate the remote UE's paging occasions in a sidelink message).
Regarding claim 3, Ozturk further teaches the information related to the paging monitoring includes a fifth generation serving temporary mobile subscriber identity (5G-S- TMSI) and a Uu discontinuous reception (DRX) cycle (see [0096]).
Regarding claim 4, Ozturk further teaches an active downlink (DL) bandwidth part (BWP) of the relay UE includes a common control resource set (CORESET) and a common search space (see [0075, 0083]).
Regarding claim 6, Cheng further teaches based on the reception of the information related to the paging monitoring, the relay UE starts the paging monitoring of the remote UE (see figure 20, [0098-0099, 0104, 0107], in order to monitor the remote UE, the remote UE may transmit information that the relay UE can use to calculate the remote UE's paging occasions in a sidelink message).
Regarding claim 9, Cheng further teaches the paging message is received through unicast signaling via PC5 ([0071]).
Regarding claim 11, Ozturk further teaches the remote UE communicates with at least one of another UE, a UE related to an autonomous vehicle, a base station, or a network (see figure 1, [0055]).
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over OZTURK et al. (US Pub. No.: 2023/0328689, hereinafter, “Ozturk”) in view of CHENG et al. (US Pub. No.: 2023/0224859, hereinafter, “Cheng”) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Xu et al. (US Patent No.: 12,120,633, hereinafter, “Xu”).
Regarding claim 5, Ozturk and Cheng, in combination, fails to teach the paging for the remote UE is transmitted from a base station to the relay UE in a dedicated RRC message. However, Xu teaches the paging for the remote UE is transmitted from a base station to the relay UE in a dedicated RRC message (see figure 6, claims 1, 7 and 13).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Xu into view of Ozturk and Cheng in order to provide an essential for personalized mobility, secure configuration and efficient.
Claim(s) 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over OZTURK et al. (US Pub. No.: 2023/0328689, hereinafter, “Ozturk”) in view of CHENG et al. (US Pub. No.: 2023/0224859, hereinafter, “Cheng”) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of IDS (filed on 08/14/2025)-NPL-3GPP RAN WG2 Meeting #115 electronic online, August, 2021, InterDigital.
Regarding claim 7, Ozturk teaches remote UE is transition from the RRC IDLE state to the RRC CONNECTED state and via versa (see [0094]). Ozturk and Cheng, in combination, fails to teach the remote UE transmits information indicating that the remote UE transitions to the RRC IDLE state to the relay UE. However, InterDigital the remote UE transmits information indicating that the remote UE transitions to the relay UE (see proposal 5).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of InterDigital into view of Ozturk and Cheng in order to provide for reduced power consumption at the relay UE, since the relay UE may not need to be active for paging occasions other than those associated with the relay UE.
Regarding claim 8, InterDigital further teaches based on the remote UE transitions from the RRC IDLE state to the RRC CONNECTED state, the relay UE stops the paging monitoring (see Proposal 2).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Tuan A. Pham whose telephone number is (571) 272-8097, the fax number is (571) 273-8097 and the email is tuan.pham01@uspto.gov. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM-5:30 PM. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, Applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Yuwen (Kevin) Pan can be reached on (571) 272-7855. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/TUAN PHAM/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2649