DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 .
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.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged. In particular, this Application is the national stage application of an international application that claims foreign priority to a European patent application filed on 19 May 2022. Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement, submitted on 17 Nov 2024, is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because figures 1 and 2 lack sufficient contrast between some text and their backgrounds. This creates text that is illegible. Rule 1.84(p)(1).
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Objections
Claims 6, 9, and 14 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 6 and 14 recite, in part, “an evaluation of geographical positions of the two user devices relatively to local base stations.” The Examiner believes “relatively” needs replaced with “relative” for this clause to make grammatical sense.
Claim 9 recites, in part, “where the first sidelink carriers at least a part of the control information.” The Examiner believes this limitation needs amended to “wherein the first sidelink [[carriers]]carries at least a part of the control information.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 10-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph, because the claim purports to invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, but fails to recite a combination of elements as required by that statutory provision and thus cannot rely on the specification to provide the structure, material or acts to support the claimed function. As such, the claim recites a function that has no limits and covers every conceivable means for achieving the stated function, while the specification discloses at most only those means known to the inventor. Accordingly, the disclosure is not commensurate with the scope of the claim.
In particular, claims 10-16 recite device without providing the structure of the device. Instead of defining the structural elements of the devices, claims 10-16 recite only functional limitations. This creates the possibility of a single means claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(b)
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.
Claims 1-15 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) 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 claims 1 and 10, “the activation and deactivation of a second sidelink” fails to find antecedent basis in the claimed invention.
In claim 8, “the entire coverage area of the emitting first base station” fails to find antecedent basis in the claimed invention.
Claims 1-7, 9, and 11-15 are rejected due to their dependence upon an indefinite claim.
No Prior Art Rejections
Claims 6 and 14 are not subject to a prior art rejection.
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.
Claims 1-3, 7-12, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (US 20230040863) in view of Selvanesan (US 20240406985).
Regarding claims 1 and 10, Li teaches a method and a user device adapted to:
act in at least two ranges of frequency (Li, ¶74 and figures 5 and 8– in sidelink carrier aggregation, the UE operates over the carriers in FR1 and/or FR2 [i.e. two frequency ranges]),
establish a first sidelink in a first range of frequency with a second user device (Li, ¶119 and figure 10 – initial PC5 connection is established between UE 120-1 and UE 120-2),
control the activation and deactivation of a second sidelink. . . by signaling on the first sidelink established with the second user device (Li, ¶¶121, 125 – first UE sends an RRCReconfigurationSidelink message to the second UE, which indicates each sidelink carrier and the BWPs for each sidelink carrier; Li, ¶¶136, 140 – first UE transmits one or more sidelink communications using the active BWP on the one or more selected carriers, where one or more BWPs and carriers may be activated/deactivated by RRCReconfigurationSidelink signaling),
said signaling including a resource indication relative to available frequency resources in the second range of frequency for the second sidelink to be opened. Li, ¶¶125,134 (RRCReconfigurationSidelink may include a configuration of the selected carriers and their active BWPs [i.e. available resources of the one or more carriers, including a “second carrier”]).
Li does not explicitly teach the second sidelink being “at a higher second range of frequency” than the first sidelink. However, Selvanesan teaches control signaling on a first sidelink carrier activating the data transmission on a second sidelink carrier. Selvanesan, figure 17b and ¶¶357, 360 (CC1 in FR1 pointing to CC2 in FR2 for data). The frequency range of CC2 in FR2 is higher than the frequencies of CC1 in FR1. Id. at ¶¶283-285. At the time of the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to place the sidelink carriers, taught by Li, in different frequency ranges, where the second carrier is at a higher frequency than the first carrier, as taught by Selvanesan, in order to minimize interference between the bands. Id. at ¶233.
Regarding claims 2 and 11, the combination of Li and Selvanesan also teaches wherein the signaling further includes a quality indication relative to the quality of the first sidelink. Li, ¶132 (the sidelink BWP configuration provided by the first UE includes selected carriers, which are selected based on quality measurements of the SL carrier candidates); Selvanesan, ¶¶168-172, 192-195 (switching a communication to another carrier may be based on the data rate, latency, etc. of each carrier).
Regarding claims 3 and 12, the combination of Li and Selvanesan also teaches wherein the signaling further includes a state indication of a state machine comprising at least the following states: activate second sidelink in frequency included in resource indication, suspend second sidelink, resume second sidelink, terminate second sidelink. Li, ¶95 (activate and deactivate the active BWPs of selected carriers constitutes activation and termination states); Selvanesan, figure 11 and ¶313 (when the UE continues its transmission on CC2, CC2 resumes the transmission that was previously started on CC1); Selvanesan, figure 13 and ¶327 (when the UE falls back to CC1 after transmitting on CC2, the transmission on CC2 is suspended).
Regarding claims 7 and 15, the combination of Li and Selvanesan also teaches for the first user device, to receive the resource indication via an air interface with a first base station with which it has a connection in the first frequency range. Li, ¶118 (base station may provide first UE with initial configuration of sidelink carriers and/or BWPs); Li, ¶32, 34 (each frequency supports one RAT, the uplink/downlink channels of NR use the same frequencies as sidelink channels in NR [specifically, as is known in the art, sidelink resource are carved out of uplink resources]).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Li and Selvanesan also teaches wherein the resource indication is a frequency band or frequency chunk indicated to be usable for a second sidelink by the user device within the entire coverage area of the emitting first base station. Li, ¶95 (an active BWP of a selected SL carrier is a band or chunk to be used for SL transmissions between the first and second UE while under base station 110), which may select the carriers for SL).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Li and Selvanesan also teaches where the first sidelink carriers at least a part of the control information for data transmitted over the second sidelink. Selvanesan, figure 17b and ¶¶357 and360 (CC1 in FR1 pointing to CC2 in FR2 for data).
Claims 4 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (US 20230040863) in view of Selvanesan (US 20240406985) and further in view of Vargas (US 20200374858).
Regarding claims 4 and 13, the combination of Li and Selvanesan teaches the method according to claim 1 and the user device of claim 10, but does not explicitly teach “a step of broadcasting synchronization signals in the second range of frequency upon receiving reference signals on the first sidelink in the first range of frequency from the other user device in proximity above a certain first threshold.” However, Vargas teaches a UE transmitting sidelink broadcast signals over FR2. Vargas, ¶¶110, 113 (e.g. S-SS exchanged over FR2). The S-SS may be a part of an S-SSB, which may include a reference signal. Id. at ¶110 (DMRS in S-SSB). And the S-SSB may be exchanged by both sidelink devices. Id. at ¶113. For a sidelink device to receive a broadcast from a transmitting UE, it must be in proximity to the transmitting UE. Id. at ¶65. At the time of the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to enable the UEs, taught by the combination of Li and Selvanesan, to exchange broadcast and reference signals, as taught by Vargas, in order to synchronize transmissions over FR1 and FR2. Id. at ¶¶111, 114.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Li (US 20230040863) in view of Selvanesan (US 20240406985) and further in view of Cao (US 20250119262).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Li and Selvanesan teaches the method according to claim 1, where the second sidelink is suspended when second sidelink signal quality or reference is below a certain second threshold. Selvanesan, ¶151 (switching involves deactivating the old carrier [i.e. suspension] and activating the new carrier); id. at ¶¶168, 170 (switching triggered by quality being below a configured threshold). The combination also teaches selecting SL carriers based on measurements of the carrier candidates. Li, ¶132 (sidelink RSRP, RSRQ, etc. used to select carriers for sidelink transmission). The combination of Li and Selvanesan does not explicitly teach a second sidelink carrier is “resumed when reference signals on the first sidelink in the first range of frequency is again above the first threshold.” However, Cao teaches a UE capable of transmitting over one or more carriers and switching between use of the one or more carriers. Cao, ¶92. At times, the UE may suspend switching between the carriers. Id. at ¶93. The UE may resume carrier switching and thus resume transmission on the switched-to carrier. Id. at ¶113. At the time of the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to enable the resumption of a UE’s transmission, as taught by Cao, based on the sidelink measurements of a carrier in F1 when executing the sidelink transmission, taught by the combination of Li and Selvanesan, in order to ensure consistency and predicatability when resuming transmission on a carrier by providing sufficient time for the RF front end to retune. Id. at ¶¶117-118.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Raghunathan (US 10798706).
Regarding claim 16, Raghunathan teaches a base station adapted to:
act in at least one first range of frequency adapted (Raghunathan, 9:44 – all NBs, including NB 40 are configured to act within wideband carrier 20),
to connect to a first user device in a first range of frequency (Raghunathan, 9:46-48 – NB 40 uses narrowband carrier 54, which is within wideband carrier 20; Raghunathan, 9:20-23 – NB 40 connected to WCD 52) and,
to connect to a second base station acting in a second range of frequency higher than the first range of frequency (Raghunathan, 9:48-50 – NB 42 uses narrowband carrier 56, which is located at a higher frequency within the wideband carrier 20; Raghunathan, 3:65-67 – serving NB [e.g. NB 40] and nearby NB [e.g. NB 42] engage in signaling to coordinate their respective resource allocations, which requires a connection between base stations),
said base station being further configured to
gather information on bandwidth parts in the second range of frequency used by the second base station (Raghunathan, 3:65-4:2 – under ICIC, a NB learns the frequency resources of another NB; Raghunathan, figure 4 and 9:53-65 – the narrowband carrier 54 is selected such that it does not overlap with narrowband carrier 56 [i.e. the second frequency range used by the second NB 42]),
determine available frequency resource in the second range of frequency (Raghunathan, 10:5-13, and figure 4 – each NB operates in wideband carrier 20, but considers “off limits” the narrowband carrier of nearby NBs within the available resources of the wideband carrier 20),
send resource indication relative to available frequency resources in the second range of frequency to the first user device. Raghunathan, 8:30-44 (WCD receives MIB that indicates the services provided by the narrowband carrier).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN S LAMONT whose telephone number is (571)270-7514 and email address is benjamin.lamont@uspto.gov (see MPEP 502.03 for using EFS or mail, but not email to authorize electronic communications). The examiner can normally be reached M-F 7am to 3pm EST.
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/Benjamin Lamont/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461
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