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 .
Response to Amendment
The following is a final office action in response to applicant’s reply, filed on 07/22/2026, to the Non-Final Office Action mailed on 04/22/2026.
Claims 1-3, 5-9, 11, and 12 are amended. Claims 4 and 10 are canceled. Claims 1-3, 5-9, and 11-16 are pending and addressed below.
Applicant’s amendment has overcome claims 1 and 7 objection, previously set forth in the non-final office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claims 1-3, 5-9, 11-13 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over PARK; Giwon et al US 20230164768 A1, hereinafter PARK, in view of IDS Reference, R2-211002, Apple, Discussion on Remaining issues of SL DRX, 3GPP TSG-RAN WG2 Meeting #116-e, Date Uploaded in 3GPP meeting 20211022, hereinafter NPL-A.
Regarding claims 1 and 7, PARK teaches, a method of a first terminal for performing a sidelink wireless communication in a wireless communication system (PARK [7] “An object of the present disclosure is to provide a sidelink (SL) communication method between devices (or UEs) …”), the method comprising:
identifying whether resource reservation information is included in sidelink control information (SCI) (“resource reservation information” is interpreted, under BRI and in line with the Spec, as resource timing for future transmission e.g., retransmission. PARK [126] TABLE 7 “19: Working assumption: SL HARQ RTT timer can be derived from the retransmission resource timing when the SCI indicates a retransmission resource.”, teaches when SCI includes retransmission resource timing (=resource reservation information), SL HARQ RTT timer is derived from the retransmission resource timing. It is inherent that UE identifies that SCI includes the information).
PARK does not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, NPL-A teaches, receiving, from a second terminal, sidelink discontinuous reception (DRX) configuration information including first sidelink HARQ RTT timer information associated with HARQ feedback enabled and second sidelink HARQ RTT timer information associated with HARQ feedback disabled (NPL-A 2.3 Configuration of SL HARQ RTT timer page 3 “Agreement on HARQ-related SL DRX timer]: 9: “HARQ RTT is supported for both HARQ enabled and HARQ disabled cases by allowing HARQ RTT timer to be set to different values.“; page 4, lines-1-9, 10-18 describing Option 1, lines 1-2 “Based on RAN2 agreements, a Sidelink RX UE is supposed to maintain a SL HARQ RTT timer per SL HARQ process per SRC/DST address pair, based on its SL-DRX configuration.”, teaches configured DRX timer information comprising HARQ RTT Timer for HARQ enabled and HARQ disabled cases, therefore, implying receiving SL DRX configuration information);
if the resource reservation information is not included in the SCI, identifying whether HARQ feedback enabled is configured; if HARQ feedback enabled is configured, identifying a sidelink HARQ RTT timer based on the first sidelink HARQ RTT timer information associated with HARQ feedback enabled (NPL-A page 4, line 5, 9 “Option 1 is the explicit configuration of HARQ RTT timer. … UE need to be configured with the HARQ RTT timer value … depending on whether HARQ feedback is enabled or disabled”, page 4, lines-17-18 “Option 1 is only needed for the case that when retransmission time is not indicated in SCI …”, Figure. 2 depicts “FB-disabled and FB-enabled HARQ RTT timer”, suggesting determination of HARQ feedback configuration (enabled/disabled) before applying the corresponding HARQ RTT Timer); and starting the sidelink HARQ RTT timer (Implied in NPL-A).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of PARK to include the features as taught by NPL-A above in order for an enhanced SL DRX configuration design for next generation wireless systems (NPL-A Introduction).
With respect to claim 7, claim recites the identical features of claim 1 for a corresponding terminal. Therefore, it is subjected to the same rejection. PARK further teaches, a terminal performing sidelink wireless communication in a wireless communication system, the terminal comprising: a transceiver; and a controller (see PARK FIG.16).
Regarding claims 2 and 8, PARK, in view of NPL-A, teaches the method/terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 7.
NPL-A further teaches, further comprising: if HARQ feedback disabled is configured, identifying a sidelink HARQ RTT timer based on the second sidelink HARQ RTT timer information associated with HARQ feedback disabled; and starting the sidelink HARQ RTT timer (see the citations and explanation in the rejection of claims 1 and 7 above, for HARQ feedback disabled case).
Regarding claims 3 and 9, PARK, in view of NPL-A, teaches the method/terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 7.
PARK further teaches, wherein the deriving includes: if the resource reservation information is included in the SCI, deriving a sidelink HARQ RTT timer based on the resource reservation information (PARK [126] TABLE 7 “19: Working assumption: SL HARQ RTT timer can be derived from the retransmission resource timing when the SCI indicates a retransmission resource.”, teaches when SCI includes retransmission resource timing (=resource reservation information), SL HARQ RTT timer is derived from the retransmission resource timing).
Regarding claims 5 and 11, PARK, in view of NPL-A, teaches the method/terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 7.
PARK further teaches, wherein starting the sidelink HARQ RTT timer comprises further comprising: transmitting HARQ feedback; and starting the sidelink HARQ RTT timer in a slot of a preconfigured point after transmitting an acknowledgement (ACK) or a negative acknowledgement (NACK) (PARK [112] “when an RX UE successfully decodes a PSCCH (Sidelink Control Information) transmitted by a TX UE, but fails to decode the PSSCH and transmits a HARQ NACK to the TX UE, the RX UE may start a Sidelink HARQ-RTT-Timer-RX timer and transition to sleep mode.”, [126] TABLE 7 “22: For transmissions with HARQ feedback, the RX UE starts SL HARQ RTT timer in the symbol/ slot following the end of PSFCH transmission.”, teaches sending NACK for decoding failure of a HARQ, and starting HARQ RTT timer in the symbol/ slot following the end of PSFCH transmission, that carries NACK information).
Regarding claims 6 and 12, PARK, in view of NPL-A, teaches the method/terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 7.
PARK further teaches, further comprising: receiving, from the second terminal, the SCI (This is a well-known feature of SL DRX operation. See also PARK [0167] “Referring to FIG. 8, if an RX UE supporting a SL DRX operation receives a SCI (e.g., the SCI including reservation transmission scheduling information for PSSCH (i.e., SL data) reception) transmitted by a TX UE, the RX UE may maintain an active state until the RX UE receives all PSCCHs/PSSCHs (e.g., up to three PSSCHs) transmitted by the TX UE using the reserved transmission resource(s). Thereby, the RX UE may monitor (or receive) the PSCCHs/PSSCHs transmitted by the TX UE.”, and [106]).
Regarding claims 13 and 15, PARK, in view of NPL-A, teaches the method/terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 7.
NPL-A further teaches, wherein the first sidelink HARQ RTT timer information and the second sidelink HARQ RTT timer information are associated with unicast (NPL-A page 5, “For all the cases where an explicitly configured SL HARQ RTT timer value is to be used, as shown in the last column as 1A/1B/1C in Table 1. Here, we assume the UE implementation can choose the appropriate value (1A vs. 1B vs. 1C) for SL unicast case, …”).
Claims 14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over PARK, in view of NPL-A, as applied to the rejection of claims 1 and 7, and further in view of LEE; Seungmin et al US 20220030580 A1, hereinafter LEE.
Regarding claims 14 and 16, PARK, in view of NPL-A, teaches the method/terminal, as outlined in the rejection of claims 1 and 7.
PARK and NPL-A do not expressly teach, however, in the same field of endeavor, LEE teaches, further comprising: transmitting, to the second terminal, assistance information including preferred sidelink DRX configuration information, wherein the preferred sidelink DRX configuration information includes information on a sidelink on-duration timer and information on a sidelink DRX slot offset (LEE claim 23 “wherein based on the first UE receiving assistance information from the second UE, the DRX configuration is determined by the first UE based on the assistance information.”, claim 25 “wherein the assistance information includes a desired DRX configuration of the second UE”, claim 26 “wherein the desired DRX configuration includes at least one of a desired DRX cycle and a desired DRX offset”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of PARK and NPL-A to include the features as taught by LEE above to provide a method where a UE having limited frequency band capability may easily perform D2D operations without experiencing any interference, and power consumption of the UE that may be caused interference may be reduced. Thus, more power-efficient D2D operations may be performed (LEE [0022]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 07/22/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues in Remarks page 11 and 12 “NPL-A further discloses "the value(s) of the SL HARQ RTT Timer, when explicitly configured and not determined via SCI (if agreed to do so), is determined by UE or NW implementation." Id. NPL-A leaves the determination of the timer value as a matter of UE or NW implementation. In contrast, the amended claim 1 describes that a terminal receives sidelink DRX configuration information including first sidelink HARQ RTT timer information associated with HARQ feedback enabled and second sidelink HARQ RTT timer information associated with HARQ feedback disabled. The amended claim 1 recites the content of the sidelink DRX configuration information for the first and second sidelink HARQ RTT timer. NPL-A never teaches the content of the sidelink DRX configuration information as recited in the amended claim 1.”.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant acknowledged in page 11 above the cited remarks here that NPL-A teaches all the feature of the claim 1 including the support of HARQ-related DRX timer including separate HARQ RTT timers for both HARQ enabled and disabled. It is inherent the DRX timers are provided in DRX configuration (see also NPL-A page 4, lines-1-9, 10-18 describing Option 1, lines 1-2 “Based on RAN2 agreements, a Sidelink RX UE is supposed to maintain a SL HARQ RTT timer per SL HARQ process per SRC/DST address pair, based on its SL-DRX configuration.”. Moreover, the exact value of the HARQ RTT Timer and how it is determined is not part of the claim or the invention, claim is about DRX configuration includes HARQ RTT timers. Therefore, applicant’s argument that values of the timers are dependent of UE or NW implementation is irrelevant.
Applicant further argues in Remarks page 12 “The amended claim 1 further describes that, if HARQ feedback enabled is configured, the terminal identifies a sidelink HARQ RTT timer based on the first sidelink HARQ RTT timer information associated with HARQ feedback enabled and starts the sidelink HARQ RTT timer. While NPL-A discloses SL HARQ RTT timer, NPL-A fails to disclose that the sidelink HARQ RTT timer is identified based on the sidelink HARQ RTT timer information as recited in the amended claim 1. NPL-A merely discloses a general architecture and a general-principle agreement permitting different timer values to be used for the HARQ-enabled and HARQ-disabled cases, respectively. In contrast, the amended claim 1 recites the specific condition and operation of the terminal to identify a sidelink HARQ RTT timer based on the first sidelink HARQ RTT timer information associated with HARQ feedback enabled. Furthermore, NPL-A explicitly leaves the determination of the timer value as a matter of UE or NW implementation, which distinguish the claimed elements of the amended claims away from the reference of NPL-A. Therefore, neither explicitly nor implicitly, Park, Ko, and NPL-A, alone or in combination, do not disclose the claimed elements of the amended claim 1”.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. NPL-A discloses first separate HARQ RTT timers for HARQ enabled and HARQ disabled cases. Therefore, when NPL-A recites using configured HARQ timers when SCI does not include reservation resource, it is inherent that it refers to HARQ enabled and HARQ disabled timers. See also NPL-A Fig. 2.
Examiner’s Note
Applicant is advised to check the pertinent prior art of Freda; Martino, US 20240414809 A1 (e.g., Para [112], [121]-[122], [158], [272], [433], [466]), that also reads on the claims of the applicant’s invention.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Freda; Martino, US 20240414809 A1 - METHODS, ARCHITECTURES, APPARATUSES AND SYSTEMS FOR PERFORMING DISCONTINUOUS RECEPTION ON SIDELINK; Para [112], [121]-[122], [158], [272], [433], [466].
HONG; Sung-pyo, US 20220346011 A1 - METHOD FOR CONTROLLING SIDELINK COMMUNICATION, AND DEVICE THEREFOR; claims 18, 22-23.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
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/MAHBUBUL BAR CHOWDHURY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2475
