DETAILED ACTION
This office action addresses Applicant’s response filed on 19 December 2025. Claims 1-9, 11, and 13-22 are pending.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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.
Claim(s) 1, 9, 11, 14-18, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Rigetti (WO 2020/072819) in view of Wang (US 2022/0269976), Boutin (US 9,442,760), Shanks (“Kubernetes – Pods”), Lin (US 2021/0011762), and the Container Device Interface Specification.
Regarding claim 1, Rigetti discloses a method comprising:
receiving, by a quantum circuit controller of a classical computing system comprising one or more classical computing devices comprising one or more processor devices, a request to execute a quantum circuit that includes quantum program instructions that perform one or more quantum operations on one or more qubits (Figs. 1 and 5, steps 502-503 and 505-508; ¶¶53, 58, 81, 111, 121);
requesting, by the quantum circuit controller from a first quantum computing system comprising a first set of quantum computing devices, metadata describing characteristics of the first set of quantum computing devices (¶¶82, 84, 89, 93, 102, 103, 104, 112, 119, 132, 145);
determining, by the quantum circuit controller, based on the quantum circuit and the metadata, a selected quantum computing device of the first set of quantum computing devices (¶¶32, 57, 81, 97, 110, 130, 157, 164); and
sending, to the first quantum computing system, quantum circuit information that identifies the quantum circuit and instructions to execute the quantum circuit on the selected quantum computing device (Fig. 5, steps 509-510; ¶57).
If Rigetti is found to be unclear regarding requesting, by the quantum circuit controller from a first quantum computing system comprising a first set of quantum computing devices, metadata describing characteristics of the first set of quantum computing devices, Wang also discloses these limitations (¶¶179, 191, 192). If Wang is found to be unclear regarding these limitations, Boutin also discloses the same (col. 5, lines 10-17). It would have been obvious to persons having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Rigetti, Wang, and Boutin, because doing so would have involved merely the routine use of a known technique to improve similar devices in the same way to achieve the predictable results of managing information about resources in a distributed quantum computing system. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385, 1396. Rigetti discloses a distributed quantum computing system that collects metadata about quantum computing resources. Wang and Boutin teach that the metadata should be collected and managed by requesting and receiving the metadata from the quantum computing resources. The teachings of Wang and/or Boutin are directly applicable to Rigetti in the same way, so that Rigetti’s system would similarly manage information about quantum computing resources by requesting and receiving metadata from the quantum computing resources.
Rigetti does not appear to explicitly disclose that the a quantum circuit controller is a pod in a container orchestration system, accessing, by the quantum circuit controller pod, a job template that comprises a reference to a quantum computing system interface container image that is configured to communicate with the first quantum computing system, modifying, by the quantum circuit controller pod, the job template to include a quantum computing identifier that identifies the selected quantum computing device, initiating, by the quantum circuit controller pod, a pod from the job template, the pod including a quantum computing system interface container initiated from the quantum computing system interface container image, and that the sending is perform by the quantum computing system interface container. However, these limitations are known Kubernetes and Docker features for distributed computing systems such as Rigetti’s. As taught by Shanks, pods are Kubernetes’s basic unit of running applications, such as Rigetti’s quantum controller program (p. 1, “Pods – The Theory”). Lin teaches that the controller is in a container orchestration system (¶145); accessing, by the quantum circuit controller pod, a job template that comprises a reference to a quantum computing system interface container image that is configured to communicate with the first quantum computing system (¶11); modifying, by the quantum circuit controller pod, the job template to include a quantum computing identifier that identifies the selected quantum computing device (¶¶85, 89, 137), initiating, by the quantum circuit controller pod, a pod from the job template, the pod including a quantum computing system interface container initiated from the quantum computing system interface container image, and that the sending is perform by the quantum computing system interface container (¶¶67, 161). The sending through the interface container is also a known Docker feature for container runtimes to execute on devices such as Rigetti’s quantum processors, as detailed in the Container Device Interface specification (Overview).
It would have been obvious to persons having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Rigetti, Wang, Boutin, Shanks, Lin, and the Container Device Interface Specification, because doing so would have involved merely the routine combination of known elements according to known techniques to produce merely the predictable results of implementing a distributed quantum computing system using known known distributed computing management platforms. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385, 1395. Rigetti discloses a distributed quantum computing architecture including applications for receiving, analyzing, compiling, scheduling, and sending quantum computing tasks to various quantum computing systems. Kubernetes and Docker, as taught by Shanks, Lin, and the Container Device Interface Specification, are known ways of implementing distributed computing systems such as Rigetti’s. The teachings of Shanks, Lin, and the Container Device Interface Specification are directly applicable to Rigetti in the same way, so that Rigetti’s distributed quantum computing system would similarly be implemented using known distributed computing platforms.
Regarding claim 9, Rigetti discloses analyzing, by the quantum circuit controller pod, the quantum circuit to determine a number of qubits utilized by the quantum circuit; and wherein determining, based on the quantum circuit and the metadata, the selected quantum computing device of the first set of quantum computing devices includes: determining that the selected quantum computing device implements a quantity of qubits equal to or greater than the number of qubits utilized by the quantum circuit (¶¶97, 99, 130, 147, 157, 164).
Regarding claim 11, Rigetti does not appear to explicitly disclose determining, based on the quantum circuit and the metadata, the selected quantum computing device of the first set of quantum computing devices comprises: determining, based on the metadata, a number of quantum circuit jobs queued to be executed by the selected quantum computing device; and determining that the number of quantum circuit jobs queued to be executed by the selected quantum computing device is less than a number of quantum circuit jobs queued to be executed by one or more other quantum computing devices of the first quantum computing system. Restall discloses these limitations (¶2). Motivation to combine remains consistent with claim 1.
Regarding claim 14, Rigetti discloses requesting, by the quantum circuit controller pod from a second quantum computing system comprising a second set of quantum computing devices, second metadata describing characteristics of the second set of quantum computing devices (Fig. 8; ¶¶82, 84, 89, 93, 102, 103, 104, 112, 119, 132, 145); and
wherein determining, by the quantum circuit controller pod, based on the quantum circuit and the metadata, the selected quantum computing device of the first set of quantum computing devices further comprises: determining, by the quantum circuit controller pod, based on the quantum circuit, the metadata, and the second metadata, the selected quantum computing device (Fig. 8; ¶¶57, 81, 110, 121, 157, 164).
Regarding claim 15, Rigetti discloses receiving, by the quantum circuit controller pod, the request to execute the quantum circuit that includes the quantum program instructions that perform the one or more quantum operations on the one or more qubits further comprises: receiving, by a quantum circuit control system executing on the quantum circuit controller pod from an application, the request; determining, by the quantum circuit control system, that the quantum circuit has completed; obtaining, by the quantum circuit control system, results of the execution of the quantum circuit; and sending, by the quantum circuit control system to the application, the results of the execution of the quantum circuit (Fig. 5, steps 505, 510, 511; ¶¶36, 102).
Regarding claim 16, Rigetti discloses that the quantum circuit information comprises the quantum circuit (¶¶121, 132).
Regarding claim 17, Rigetti discloses that the quantum circuit information comprises a reference to a location of the quantum circuit (¶¶121, 130).
Claims 18 and 20 are directed to computing systems and non-transitory media for performing the methods of claim 1, and are rejected under the same reasoning. Rigetti discloses computing systems and non-transitory media for performing the claimed methods (Fig. 1; ¶¶53, 179-182).
Claim(s) 2-7 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rigetti in view of Wang, Boutin, Shanks, Lin, the Container Device Interface Specification, and Headley (US 7,386,586)
Regarding claim 2, Rigetti discloses in response to sending the quantum circuit information and the instructions to the first quantum computing system, receiving, by the pod from the first quantum computing system, initial job status metadata and storing, by the pod, an initial job status record that contains metadata from the initial job status metadata in a storage device (¶¶99, 100)
If Rigetti is found to be unclear regarding receiving, by the pod, initial job status metadata comprising an indication of a current status of the quantum circuit on the selected quantum computing device, wherein the current status comprises a queued status, and wherein the initial job status metadata comprises an indication of a particular spot of the quantum circuit in the job queue, Boutin also discloses these limitations (col. 5, lines 10-13; col. 6, lines 15-27; col. 7, lines 15-23; col. 10, lines 53-61). If Boutin is also found to be unclear regarding these limitations, Headley also discloses the same (Fig. 7B, block 770; Fig. 61). It would have been obvious to persons having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Rigetti, Wang, Shanks, Lin, the Container Device Interface Specification, Boutin, and Headley, because doing so would have involved merely the routine use of a known technique to improve similar devices in the same way to achieve the predictable results of reporting resource and job data to aid job scheduling and inform users. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385, 1396. Rigetti discloses scheduling and executing jobs in a distributed quantum computing system having multiple processing nodes. Boutin and Headley teach that the processing nodes maintain and report the status of processing resources and job queues, such as the position of tasks in the queue, wait times, etc. The teachings of Boutin and Headley are directly applicable to Rigetti in the same way, so that Rigetti’s processing nodes would similarly report resource and job status data to aid job scheduling and inform users.
Regarding claims 3 and 19, Rigetti discloses subsequent to receiving the initial job status metadata, requesting, by the pod from the first quantum computing system, an updated job status associated with the quantum circuit; receiving, by the pod, updated job status metadata associated with the quantum circuit; and storing, by the pod, an updated job status record that contains metadata from the updated job status metadata in the storage device (¶¶82, 84, 97, 99, 100). If Rigetti is found to be unclear regarding these limitations, Headley also discloses the same (Fig. 62; col. 15, lines 56-58). Motivation to combine remains consistent with claim 2.
Regarding claim 4, Rigetti discloses iteratively requesting, by the pod from the first quantum computing system, the updated job status associated with the quantum circuit until the first quantum computing system indicates that the quantum circuit has completed (¶¶82, 84, 97, 99, 100). If Rigetti is found to be unclear regarding these limitations, Headley also discloses the same (Fig. 62; col. 15, lines 56-58). Motivation to combine remains consistent with claim 2.
Regarding claim 5, Rigetti does not appear to explicitly disclose that the updated job status indicates that the quantum circuit has completed, and further comprising: deleting a job status record that corresponds to the quantum circuit from an unfinished bucket in the storage device; and adding a job status record that corresponds to the quantum circuit to a finished bucket in the storage device. However, deleting a job status record that corresponds to the quantum circuit from an unfinished bucket in the storage device when the job status indicates that the circuit is complete is implied, if not inherent, in Rigetti. Specifically, Rigetti discloses scheduling and execution queues which track requested and executing jobs and are updated by the system (¶¶90, 97, 99-101). Persons having ordinary skill in the art, reading Rigetti, would understand that a completed job would no longer be stored in the scheduling and execution queues because the job is complete and thus does not require scheduling or execution; removing completed jobs is also directly implied by the use of a queue or stack, which both remove elements when they are processed/finished.
Headly further teaches that the updated job status indicates that the job has completed, and further comprising: deleting a job status record that corresponds to the job from an unfinished bucket in the storage device; and adding a job status record that corresponds to the job to a finished bucket in the storage device (Fig. 33; col. 5, lines 63-67). Motivation to combine remains consistent with claim 2.
Regarding claim 6, Rigetti discloses that the updated job status record indicates that the quantum circuit has completed, and further comprising sending information indicating that the quantum circuit has completed to a requestor associated with the request (Fig. 5, step 511; ¶36). Headly also discloses these limitations (Fig. 19). Motivation to combine remains consistent with claim 2.
Regarding claim 7, Rigetti discloses receiving, by the pod from a requestor associated with the request, a quantum circuit status request; accessing, by the pod, the storage device to determine a job status record that corresponds to the quantum circuit; and sending, to the requestor, information that identifies a job status of the quantum circuit based on the job status record that corresponds to the quantum circuit (¶¶81, 94, 97, 99, 100). If Rigetti is found to be unclear regarding these limitations, Headly also discloses the same (col. 24, lines 20-36; col. 25, lines 21-25; col. 27, lines 53-59). Motivation to combine remains consistent with claim 2.
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rigetti in view of Wang, Boutin, Shanks, Lin, the Container Device Interface Specification, and Nandyala (US 2015/0089608).
Regarding claim 8, Rigetti does not appear to explicitly disclose receiving, by the quantum circuit controller pod, credentials associated with the request, the credentials comprising data that authenticates a requestor associated with the request with the first quantum computing system; and providing, by the quantum circuit controller pod to the first quantum computing system, the credentials in conjunction with the quantum circuit information and the instructions. Nandyala discloses these limitations (¶20). It would have been obvious to persons having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Rigetti, Wang, Boutin, Shanks, Lin, the Container Device Interface Specification, and Nandyala , because doing so would have involved merely the routine combination of known elements according to known techniques to produce merely the predictable results of propagating user credentials through a distributed system to avoid the need for manual creation of credentials for each node in a distributed system. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385, 1395. Rigetti discloses scheduling user jobs to a distributed quantum computing system having multiple processing nodes. Nandyala teaches that credentials for authenticating users should be propagated to each node in a distributed system to avoid having to individually create credentials on each node. The teachings of Nandyala are directly applicable to Rigetti in the same way, so that Rigetti would similarly propagate user credentials to the nodes in the distributed quantum computing system to avoid the need for creating credentials for each node.
Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rigetti in view of Wang, Boutin, Shanks, Lin, the Container Device Interface Specification, and Griffin (US 2020/0201655).
Regarding claim 13, Rigetti does not appear to explicitly disclose that requesting the metadata describing the characteristics of the first set of quantum computing devices further comprises: invoking a method of an application programming interface of the first quantum computing system that is configured to, when invoked, return the metadata describing the characteristics of the first set of quantum computing devices. Griffin discloses these limitations (¶¶33, 34). It would have been obvious to persons having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Rigetti, Wang, Boutin, Shanks, Lin, the Container Device Interface Specification, and Griffin, because doing so would have involved merely the routine use of a known technique to improve a known method in the same way, to produce merely the predictable results of improving convenience and consistency of data access by obtaining quantum computing resource information through an application programming interface (API). KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385, 1395. Rigetti discloses obtaining metadata of distributed quantum computing resources in order to perform scheduling and execution of jobs on those resources. Griffin teaches that obtaining data of a quantum computing resource can be performed through an API, which persons having ordinary skill in the art would recognize is a typical way of interacting with computing resources to obtain information or execute tasks. The teachings of Griffin are directly applicable to Rigetti in the same way, so that Rigetti would similarly use API calls to obtain quantum computing resource metadata, in order to improve convenience and consistency of data access.
Claim(s) 21 and 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rigetti in view of Wang, Boutin, Shanks, Lin, the Container Device Interface Specification, Headley, Murata (US 2012/0212776), and Kakutani (US 2015/0128239).
Regarding claim 21, Rigetti does not appear to explicitly disclose that the pod terminates immediately subsequent to storing the initial job status record in the storage device. However, it is well known to terminate processes/pods once their tasks are performed; as taught by Murata (¶¶28-29) and Kakutani (¶89). As discussed above with regard to claims 1 and 2, Rigetti in view of Shanks, Lin, the Container Device Interface Specification, and Boutin already disclose a pod that sends jobs to computing nodes and updates the job status, so the pod would be terminated once those tasks are performed, as taught by Murata and Kakutani. It would have been obvious to persons having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Rigetti, Wang, Boutin, Shanks, Lin, the Container Device Interface Specification, Headley, Murata, and Kakutani, because doing so would have involved merely the routine combination of known elements according to known techniques to produce merely the predictable results of terminating processes/pods once their tasks are performed. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385, 1395. Rigetti discloses a distributed quantum computing system that includes processes for generating and sending jobs to quantum computing nodes, and updating the initial job status. Shanks and Lin teach that Kubernetes and Docker implement such processes using pods, and Boutin provides further clarification of updating initial job status when a job is sent. Persons having ordinary skill in the art would recognize that, having performed the tasks of sending a job and updating the initial job status, that the process pod would terminate, as taught by Murata and Kakutani. The teachings of Murata and Kakutani are directly applicable to Rigetti in the same way, so that Rigetti would similarly terminate the process pod once a job is sent and initial job status is updated.
Regarding claim 22, Rigetti discloses subsequent to receiving the initial job status metadata, initiating a status update application of the quantum circuit control system; accessing, by the status update application, the storage device to determine a set of unfinished quantum circuit jobs, each unfinished quantum circuit job corresponding to a job status record that corresponds to a quantum circuit executing or scheduled to be executed on a quantum computing device of the first quantum computing system; and for each respective unfinished quantum circuit job in the set of unfinished quantum circuit jobs: requesting, from the first quantum computing system, an updated job status of the corresponding quantum circuit; and storing, in the storage device, an updated job status record (¶¶82, 84, 97, 99, 100). If Rigetti is found to be unclear regarding these limitations, Lin (Fig. 3; ¶164) and Headley also disclose the same (Fig. 62; col. 15, lines 56-58; col. 33, lines 2-8). Rigetti does not appear to explicitly disclose that the status update application is a pod, but as discussed with regard to claim 1, pods are how applications are run in Kubernetes, as disclosed by Shanks. Motivation to combine remains consistent with claims 1, 2, and 21.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection. Applicant asserts that the prior art fails to teach newly-added limitations, which are addressed above using newly-cited prior art. In particular, the claims remain directed to merely well-known cloud/distributed computing techniques (in this case, Kubernetes and Docker), applied to a system that includes quantum computing nodes.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ARIC LIN whose telephone number is (571)270-3090. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 07:30-17:00 ET.
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3 April 2026
/ARIC LIN/ Examiner, Art Unit 2851
/JACK CHIANG/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2851
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