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 .
Examiner has considered Amendment after Non-Final mailed 7/20/2026.
Claims 1-6 are pending.
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.
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, 3-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhao et al. US 20240357337 in view of Lu et al. US 20240137745.
Regarding claim 1, A wireless relay device (user terminal, Figure 8) comprising: a reception unit configured to receive information indicating an activation or deactivation of a communication using relaying by a plurality of wireless relay devices from a base station, another wireless relay device, or a terminal (receiving, by a first user terminal, a relay discovery message sent by at least one relay user terminal, where the relay discovery message includes first indication information, para. 0169, when the first user terminal is a user terminal with relay capability, determining, by the user terminal with relay capability, whether to activate the relay capability, para. 0194); and a control unit configured to activate or deactivate a relaying function of the wireless relay device itself, based on the information indicating the activation or deactivation (when a user terminal with relay capability determines whether to activate the relay capability, it may refer to the relay discovery message sent by the relay user terminal connected to the user terminal, para, 0196), wherein the information indicating the activation or deactivation includes a number of hops in the communication (the remote user terminal needs to consider the first indication information included in the relay discovery message when selecting the previous hop relay user terminal to access, the factors that the remote user terminal needs to consider when selecting the previous hop relay user terminal to access include a minimum number of hops required for the relay user terminal to access a target object, a number of hops required for the relay user terminal to access a target object on each path corresponding to the relay user terminal, para. 0214, 0217-0218).
Zhao does not expressly disclose a number of hops to reach the wireless relay device and to activate or deactivate the relaying function of the wireless relay device itself by comparing the number of hops with an upper limit value.
Lu discloses transmitting or receiving, by a first user equipment UE, a first discovery message; where the first UE is one of multi-hop relay UEs in a topological connection between a remote UE and a network and the first discovery message includes first identification information and/or hop count information and the first discovery message is configured to identify UEs in the topological connection, Abstract. Lu discloses during a process of establishing connection, the UE determines its own hop count in the connection, the UE compares its own hop count with a maximum hop count supported by itself and if the UE's own hop count is greater than the maximum, the UE may not join the topological connection and if the UE's own hop count is less than the maximum, the UE may join the topological connection. Before the filing of the invention it would have been obvious to modify Zhao’s relay activation or deactivation with Lu’s relay hop count determination. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do
Claim 6 is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding claim 3, the wireless relay device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the reception unit receives information indicating a hop position of the wireless relay device itself on a path in the communication from the base station (the first indication information includes identification information of a target object capable of being accessed through each path corresponding to the relay user terminal, a minimum number of hops required for the relay user terminal to access a target object, a number of hops required for the relay user terminal to access a target object on each path corresponding to the relay user terminal, para. 0230, 0233-0235, the target object includes a target user terminal, para. 0243).
Regarding claim 4, The wireless relay device as claimed in claim 3, wherein an upper limit is configured to the number of hops (load information of the relay user terminal indicated by the relay discovery message satisfies a second condition, para, 0202, the second condition includes: a load of the relay user terminal is lower than a first threshold, para. 0204, load information of the relay user terminal corresponding to each hop on each path corresponding to the relay user terminal, para. 0238).
Regarding claim 5, The wireless relay device as claimed in claim 4, Zhao discloses determining, by the user terminal with relay capability, whether to activate the relay capability, para. 0194. Zhao does not expressly disclose wherein the control unit deactivates the relaying function of the wireless relay device itself in a case where the information indicating the hop position of the wireless relay device itself exceeds the upper limit.
Lu discloses transmitting or receiving, by a first user equipment UE, a first discovery message; where the first UE is one of multi-hop relay UEs in a topological connection between a remote UE and a network and the first discovery message includes first identification information and/or hop count information and the first discovery message is configured to identify UEs in the topological connection, Abstract. Lu discloses during a process of establishing connection, the UE determines its own hop count in the connection, the UE compares its own hop count with a maximum hop count supported by itself and if the UE's own hop count is greater than the maximum, the UE may not join the topological connection and if the UE's own hop count is less than the maximum, the UE may join the topological connection. Before the filing of the invention it would have been obvious to modify Zhao’s relay activation or deactivation with Lu’s relay hop count determination. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do to expand network coverage using relays when needed, para. 0030.
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhao in view of Lu in view of Perras et al. US 20220224409.
Regarding claim 2, The wireless relay device as claimed in claim 1, Zhao and Lu do not explicitly disclose further comprising: a transmission unit configured to transmit a capability indicating a supported number of hops in the communication to the base station. Perras discloses a remote WTRU that may be configured to receive data from one or more of the Relay WTRUs are configured for and may advertise its capabilities and supported data types, the WTRU advertises the number of hops, para. 0081. Before the filing of the invention it would have been obvious to modify Zhao and Lu to include Perras’ hop capability advertisement. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do so for better energy efficiency and more extensive coverage, para. 0003.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Oki et al. US 20060056846 discloses an economical optical network using network resources by using the minimum number of topology information on the optical network to which an optical node device itself belongs is stored, and the information stored is referred is used to autonomously determine whether or not the optical node device itself is an optical node device for implementing the 3R relay when setting an optical path passing through the optical node device itself.
Rao et al. discloses achieving an end-to-end quality of service (QoS) performed by a wireless transmit/receive unit includes receiving a protocol data unit and an excess time indication from a source WTRU and determining an expected latency for a next hop link based on a measure of channel load.
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 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 MELANIE JAGANNATHAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3163. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/MELANIE JAGANNATHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2468
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