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 .
This office action is responsive to the amendment filed 8/14/26.
Claims 1-7, 9-15 are pending.
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.
Claim 11 is 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.
In claim 11, it is not clear which terminal is performing the functions recited in the limitations “to:
receive a radio resource control reconfiguration message from a network device after transmitting the identification information, and
perform relay-related configuration of the PC5 interface and a Uu interface according to the radio resource control reconfiguration message.” Are these functions performed by the first terminal or the second terminal?
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.
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) 1-6, and 12-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pan et al., US 11,601,997, (“Pan”), in view of the 3GPP document entitled “Discussion on service continuity for L2 UE to NW Relay” by Huawei, HiSilicon, R2-2110488, (“Huawei”) and Wang, US 2022/0295375, (“Wang”), newly cited.
Independent Claims
Regarding claim 1, Pan teaches “An apparatus for transceiving information, applicable to a second terminal equipment (Fig. 21, Relay UE), the apparatus comprising:
a receiver (Fig. 3) configured to:
receive, by using pre-defined configuration, a radio resource control reconfiguration complete message from a first terminal equipment at a PC5 interface when the second terminal equipment is in a radio resource control idle mode or a radio resource control inactive mode, and cause the second terminal equipment to enter a radio resource control connected mode (Fig. 21, RRC Reconfiguration Complete message is received from Remote UE; col. 26, lines 4-6, “The remote UE could send a RRCReconfigurationComplete message … to gNB via the relay UE”; the newly added limitation “by using pre-defined configuration” is implicit in Pan since the RRC Reconfiguration message received from gNB includes, inter alia, a SL configuration for receiving SL messages, such as RRC Reconfiguration Complete message, from the remote UE (see Fig. 21) – however, see below for an explicit teaching); and
receive a radio resource control reconfiguration message from a network device (Fig. 21, RRC Reconfiguration message is received from gNB; col. 25, lines 56-62, “In response to reception of the identification of the remote UE … gNB could send … to the relay UE via a RRC Reconfiguration message for the relay UE”); and
processor circuitry (Fig. 3) configured to perform relay-related configuration of the PC5 interface and a Uu interface according to the radio resource control reconfiguration message” (Fig. 21, Uu configuration and/or SL configuration is determined/obtained based on receipt of RRC Reconfiguration message from gNB; col. 25, lines 55-62, “gNB could send the Uu and/or SL (or PC5) configurations”).
Pan does not teach but Huawei teaches “when the second terminal equipment is in a radio resource control idle mode or a radio resource control inactive mode, and cause the second terminal equipment to enter a radio resource control connected mode” (see page 4, proposal 7a, “For path switch from direct to indirect, RRC_INACTIVE/RRC_IDLE Relay UE enters RRC_CONNECTED state (triggered by Remote UE), upon receiving data (i.e. Remote UE’s RRC Reconfiguration complete message) from PC5 RLC”).
Pan implicitly teaches but Huawei explicitly teaches “by using pre-defined configuration” of claim 1, see page 4, Proposal 7a, “As there is no RRC connection between RRC_IDLE/RRC_INACTIVE Relay UE and gNB … default PC5 RLC and Uu RLC configurations are needed at Relay UE for Remote UE’s SRB1 transmission … RRC Reconfiguration complete message.” “Default” and “pre-defined” are equivalent terms.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Pan by incorporating the teachings of Huawei to enable a straight forward implementation of the relay UE changing its status from idle to connected and this minimizes the impacts to the specifications, as suggested by Huawei on page 4, first 5 lines. In addition, the use of a default PC5 RLC configuration at the relay UE would facilitate the receipt of the RRC reconfiguration complete message from the remote UE.
Regarding the “pre-defined configuration” additional limitations in the newly added wherein clause of claim 1, Pan does not teach but Wang teaches “a logical channel identity” (paragraph no. 0034, “In one embodiment, the RRC message is the RRC Reconfiguration message. The configuration includes the relaying channel configurations for the direct PC5 link between the relay UE and the remote UE … The channel configurations for the direct PC5 link includes … the logical channel configuration including logical channel ID”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Pan and Huawei by incorporating the teachings of Wang to facilitate the relay UE’s receiving of messages such as the RRC reconfiguration complete message from a remote UE.
Regarding independent claim 12, this independent claim is a corresponding network apparatus claim of the second terminal claim 1 and recites similar subject matter. As such, the rationale behind the above rejection of claim 1 applies with equal force to this independent claim and as further amplified below to highlight the minor differences between the claims.
Regarding further independent claim 12, see Pan, Fig. 21, for a “an apparatus, applicable to a network equipment” (gNB) and Fig. 3 which shows the structural elements of the claim.
Dependent Claims
Regarding claims 2 and 13, Pan teaches “a transmitter configured to transmit identification information to the network device” (Fig. 22, note that the “identification information” can read on either the Relay UE L2 ID transmitted in the Sidelink UE information or the Local UE ID transmitted in the RRC Reconfiguration Complete message) as recited in claim 2 and similarly recited in claim 13.
Regarding claims 3 and 14, Pan teaches “wherein, after transmitting the identification information to the network device, the receiver receives the radio resource control reconfiguration message” (Fig. 22; the RRC Reconfiguration message is received at the relay UE after transmitting the Sidelink UE information including the Relay UE L2 ID) as recited in claim 3 and similarly recited in claim 14.
Regarding claims 4 and 15, Pan teaches “wherein, the transmitter transmits the identification information to the network device via a sidelink terminal equipment information message” (Fig. 22; Sidelink UE information) as recited in claim 4 and similarly recited in claim 15.
Regarding claim 5, Pan teaches “wherein, a condition for the transmitter to transmit the identification information includes that the second terminal equipment receives the radio resource control reconfiguration complete message transmitted by the first terminal equipment” (Fig. 21, Local UE ID is transmitted by the relay UE).
Regarding claim 6, Pan teaches “wherein, the radio resource control reconfiguration complete message is transmitted by the first terminal equipment to the network device via the second terminal equipment” (Fig. 21).
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pan, Huawei and Wang as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Back et al., US 2024/0381200, (“Back”).
Pan does not teach but Back teaches “wherein, the receiver is further configured to receive SRB0 carrying the radio resource control reconfiguration complete message from the first terminal equipment at the PC5 interface” (paragraph no. 0175).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Pan, Huawei, and Wang by incorporating the teachings of Back to inform the relay UE that the RRC Reconfiguration complete message is an initial message transmitted by a new remote UE, as suggested by Back in paragraph no. 0175.
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pan, Huawei, and Wang as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Cheng et al., US 2022/0361280, (“Cheng”), or alternatively, in view of Kuo, US 11490448, (“Kuo”).
Pan does not teach but Cheng or alternatively, Kuo teaches “wherein, the receiver is further configured to receive the radio resource control reconfiguration message from the network device after entering the radio resource control connected mode” (Cheng: see paragraph no. 0062; Kuo: see col. 24, lines 38-41).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Pan, Huawei, and Wang by incorporating the teachings of either Cheng or Kuo to facilitate the receiving of the RRC reconfiguration message from the network.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the 3GPP document entitled “Discussion on service continuity for L2 UE to NW Relay” by Huawei, HiSilicon, R2-2110488, (“Huawei”), in view of Wang, US 2022/0295375, (“Wang”), newly cited.
Regarding independent claim 10, Huawei teaches “An apparatus, applicable to a first terminal equipment (page 2, Fig. 2: remote UE), the apparatus comprising:
a transmitter configured to transmit, by using a pre-defined configuration at a PC5 interface, a radio resource control reconfiguration complete message to a second terminal equipment which is in a radio resource control idle mode or a radio resource control inactive mode (see page 4, proposal 7a, “For path switch from direct to indirect, RRC_INACTIVE/RRC_IDLE Relay UE enters RRC_CONNECTED state (triggered by Remote UE), upon receiving data (i.e. Remote UE’s RRC Reconfiguration complete message) from PC5 RLC”; a transmitter is inherent in the remote UE; Huawei teaches the newly added “by using a pre-defined configuration at a PC5 interface” of claim 10, see page 4, Proposal 7a, “As there is no RRC connection between RRC_IDLE/RRC_INACTIVE Relay UE and gNB … default PC5 RLC and Uu RLC configurations are needed at Relay UE for Remote UE’s SRB1 transmission … RRC Reconfiguration complete message.” “Default” and “pre-defined” are equivalent terms), and
processor circuitry configured to: cause the second terminal equipment to enter a radio resource control connected mode by transmitting the radio resource control reconfiguration complete message” (see page 4, proposal 7a, “For path switch from direct to indirect, RRC_INACTIVE/RRC_IDLE Relay UE enters RRC_CONNECTED state (triggered by Remote UE), upon receiving data (i.e. Remote UE’s RRC Reconfiguration complete message) from PC5 RLC”; a processor is inherent in the remote UE).
Regarding the “pre-defined configuration” additional limitations in the newly added wherein clause of claim 10, Huawei does not teach but Wang teaches “a logical channel identity” (paragraph no. 0034, “In one embodiment, the RRC message is the RRC Reconfiguration message. The configuration includes the relaying channel configurations for the direct PC5 link between the relay UE and the remote UE … The channel configurations for the direct PC5 link includes … the logical channel configuration including logical channel ID”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of this claimed invention to modify Huawei by incorporating the teachings of Wang to facilitate the relay UE’s receiving of messages such as the RRC reconfiguration complete message from a remote UE.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 10, and 12 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
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.
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/WON TAE C KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2414
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