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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. KR10-2022-0082183, filed on 05 July 2022.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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.
Claims 1-3 and 5-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. (EP 3 562 182 A1) (hereinafter as Xu) and in further view of Pan et al. (US 11,601,997 B1) (hereinafter as Pan).
Regarding Claim 1, Xu teaches a method of configuring multiple wireless communication paths performed by a first user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
performing a procedure for configuring a direct path connected to a network (UE establishes a direct connection to a relay UE, pars [0089-0100]);
receiving, in a radio resource control (RRC) connected state in which the direct path is configured, configuration information regarding an indirect path between the first UE and the network (the relay UE performs configutation based on content in the RRC. pars [0089-0100]); and
receiving a sidelink message from a second UE configured as a relay UE for the indirect path (the Remote UE and the Relay UE may connect to each other by using a sidelink, pars [0089-0100]).
Xu does not explicitly teach wherein, based on failure information being included in the sidelink message from the second UE, the first UE performs bearer suspension for a first bearer related to the indirect path.
However, Pan in a similar field of endeavor discloses a method and apparatus for a remote UE to support direct and indirect communication path switching in a wireless communication system including teach wherein, based on failure information being included in the sidelink message from the second UE, the first UE performs bearer suspension for a first bearer related to the indirect path (col.15, step 8, lines 36-46, UE suspends data transmission via relay link in data path switching after RRC, and reporting that a sidelink radio link failure or sidelink RRC reconfiguration has been detected, col.18, lines 7-9, switching from a direct path to in,direct path, 4.5.4.2, col.18, lines 47-52, and RRC setup includes establishing a radio bearer, col. 18, lines 15-21).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teachings of Pan in Xu to support direct and indirect communication path switching. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Xu/Pan to improve multipath services.
Regarding Claim 2. Xu/Pan teach the method of claim 1, wherein the failure information is related to configuration failure for the indirect path (Pan: reporting that a sidelink radio link failure or sidelink RRC reconfiguration has been detected, col.18, lines 7-9, switching from a direct path to indirect path, 4.5.4.2, col.18, lines 47-52).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teachings of Pan in Xu to support direct and indirect communication path switching. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Xu/Pan to improve multipath services.
Regarding Claim 3. Xu/Pan teach the method of claim 1, wherein the first bearer is an indirect bearer (Xu: discusses connecting directly and indirectly connecting the UE to a path, pars [0080-0081] and par [0011] discussed mapping a first bearer configuration to a second bearer configuration).
Regarding Claim 5. Xu/Pan teach the method of claim 1, further comprising: performing an RRC re-establishment procedure based on the failure information being included in the sidelink message (Pan: a local ID to identify the remote UE can be included in a header and including in the reconfiguration message, col. 24, lines 26-40).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teachings of Pan in Xu to support direct and indirect communication path switching. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Xu/Pan to improve multipath services.
Regarding Claim 6. Xu/Pan teach the method of claim 1, wherein the sidelink message is directly received from the second UE through a sidelink interface between the first UE and the second UE (relay UE), (Xu: par [0077] discloses direct path and par [0089] discloses sidelink communication).
Regarding Claim 7. Xu/Pan teach the method of claim 1, wherein the sidelink interface between the first UE and the second UE, is released based on the failure information being included in the sidelink message (Pan: reporting that a sidelink radio link failure or sidelink RRC reconfiguration has been detected, col.18, lines 7-9, switching from a direct path to indirect path, 4.5.4.2, col.18, lines 47-52).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teachings of Pan in Xu to support direct and indirect communication path switching. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Xu/Pan to improve multipath services.
Regarding Claim 8. Xu/Pan teach the method of claim 1, wherein the sidelink message includes information indicating that the sidelink message is related to multi-path configuration of the first UE (Pan: report includes information for path switching from direct to indirect communication. The remote UE could receive a RRCReconfiguration message indicating the target relay UE for path switch, col.26, lines 24-67, a UE may establish multiple PC5 unicast links with a peer UE, col.6, lines 56-60).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teachings of Pan in Xu to support direct and indirect communication path switching. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Xu/Pan to improve multipath services.
Regarding Claim 9. Xu/Pan teach the method of claim 1, further comprising: reporting, to the network through the direct path, configuration failure for the indirect path based on the failure information being included in the sidelink message (Pan: reporting that a sidelink radio link failure or sidelink RRC reconfiguration has been detected, col.18, lines 7-9, switching from a direct path to indirect path, 4.5.4.2, col.18, lines 47-52).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teachings of Pan in Xu to support direct and indirect communication path switching. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Xu/Pan to improve multipath services.
Regarding Claim 10. Xu/Pan teach the method of claim 1, wherein the first UE operates as a remote UE in the indirect path (Xu: par [0077] discloses remote UE communication in indirect path).
Regarding Claim 11, this non-transitory computer-readable medium claim comprises limitations substantially the same, as those discussed in claim 1 above, same rationale of rejection is applicable (Xu: pars [0391-0397]) further disclose a storage medium).
Regarding Claim 12, this apparatus (device) claim comprises limitations substantially the same, as those discussed in claim 1 above, same rationale of rejection is applicable (Xu: pars [0391-0397] further disclose processor and memory).
Regarding 13. Xu/Pan teach the device of claim 12, further comprising: a transceiver configured to transmit or receive a signal under control of the processor (Xu: par [0356]).
Regarding 14. Xu/Pan teach the device of claim 12, wherein the device is an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or a digital signal processor (Xu: par [0355]).
Regarding 15. Xu/Pan teach the device of claim 12, wherein the device is a user equipment (UE) operating in a 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) based wireless communication system (Xu: par [0126]).
Conclusion
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/ANTHONY MEJIA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2451
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