DETAILED ACTION
This is the final action regarding application number 17/564,802 filed 09/26/2025. Claims 1-3, 5-6 and 10-26 have been amended. Claims 1-26 have been examined and are pending.
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 .
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.
Information Disclosure Statements
Applicant's Information Disclosure Statements, filed on 03/21/2025, 06/27/2025 and 08/06/2025, have been received and entered into the record. Given the large number of documents submitted with the IDS, it is noted that by initializing each of the cited references on the accompanying 1449 forms, the examiner is indicating that only a cursory review has been made of the cited references.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-10, 13, 14-16, 18-23 and 26 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being unpatentable by Nichol et al.(High-fidelity entangling gate for double-quantum-dot spin Qubits) henceforth known as Nichol.
Regarding claims 1, Nichol teaches a method for achieving an error divisible gate in a quantum computing system having a gate coupled between a pair of qubits(Nichol, Page 1, Col 2, Paragraph 2, “Through both standard and interleaved randomized benchmarking, we measure average single-qubit gate fidelities of ~ 99%. At the same time, this approach maintains a large interaction between adjacent capacitively coupled qubits”)
Nichol teaches selecting an intrinsic gate error rate threshold(Nichol, Page 1, Col 2, Paragraph 1, “Until now, two-qubit gates for singlet-triplet qubits have operated with J(ε)≫ΔBZ, and charge noise is the limiting factor in two-qubit gate fidelities…However, if ΔBZ≫J(ε)… and the qubit sensitivity to charge noise …is reduced by a factor of J(ε)/ΔBZ`, effectively mitigating decoherence due to charge noise” and Page 2, Fig. 1, “We operate the qubit with ε < 0 and J(ε)≪ΔBz, as indicated with the dashed gray box” where intrinsic errors enter through noise in ε and ε < 0 and J(ε)≪ΔBz corresponds to a threshold of intrinsic gate errors (See Nichol, Page 1, Col 1, Paragraph 2, “In each qubit, the voltage-controlled exchange interaction J(ε), where ε represents the gate voltage,”)) for the gate coupled between a pair of qubits in a quantum computing system (Nichol, Page 4, Col.1, Paragraph 4, “To assess the gate fidelity, we perform self-consistent quantum process tomography on the two qubit gate” where the fidelity is the error rate for a gate coupled between a pair of qubits and an intrinsic gate error rate is the error rate before applying waveform or signal from an external system)
Nichol teaches determining a first gate time to execute a full entangling gate rotation on the gate(Nichol, Page 2, Col.2, Paragraph 2, “We drive qubit rotations by adding an oscillating voltage to the plunger gates, such that the total voltage ε(t) = ε0 + ε1cos(Ωt). For ε1 ≪ ε0, J(t) ≈ J(ε0) + 2jcos(Ωt), where j = ε1/2 J′(ε0) is the Rabi frequency” where the rotation of a qubit is determined by a function of the strength of the Rabi frequency and the duration (time length) of the Rabi frequency and using a time variable for the Rabi frequency is considered determining a gate time that will be used to execute a full entangling gate rotation) with a first error rate less than the intrinsic gate error rate threshold (Page 2, Fig. 1, “We operate the qubit with ε < 0 and J(ε)≪ΔBz” where operating the qubit rotation with J(ε) corresponds to determining a first gate time to execute a full entangling gate rotation as ε incorporates intrinsic errors and ε is part of the Rabi frequency with a duration(time length) and Nichol, Page 4, Paragraph 4, “To assess the gate fidelity, we perform self-consistent quantum process tomography on the two-qubit gate (Fig. 4a–d), requiring 256 tomographic measurements of the two-qubit operation. We extract … on a measured tomographically complete set of input and output states” where assessing the fidelity of a gate after rotations is considered determining first error rate after a full entangling gate rotation that is less the intrinsic gate error))
Nichol teaches based on the first gate time to execute the full entangling rotation on the gate, applying, to the gate, a second gate rotation having a second gate time less than the first gate time in order(Nichol, Page 2, Col.2, Paragraph 2, “We drive qubit rotations by … Rabi frequency” where the use of a shorter duration than the first gate time in a Rabi frequency is considered based on a time to execute a full entangling gate, applying, to the gate, a second gate rotation having a second gate time less than the first gate time ) to determine a second error rate (Nichol, Page 4, Col. 1, Paragraph 4, “To assess the gate fidelity, we perform self-consistent quantum process tomography” where process tomography on a Rabi frequency with a second gate time to determine gate fidelity is considered determining a second error rate)
Nichol teaches selecting the second gate time as a final gate time when the second error rate is smaller than the first error rate (Nichol, Page 11, Paragraph 3, “To find the ideal process matrix, -ideal, we start with the process matrix generated … and search through all single-qubit rotations to find the highest fidelity, given by Tr(-Xideal-X)” where, when choosing a X that has a higher fidelity/smaller error rate than the first error rate, the selection of a X entails selecting the tomographical data which contains the Rabi frequency duration (a second gate time) is considered selecting the second gate time as a final gate time when the second error rate is smaller than the first error rate)
Nichol teaches operating the gate, wherein a total error rate of the quantum computing system is reduced(Nichol, Page 1, Col. 1, Paragraph 2, “In this work, we present a technique to suppress decoherence caused by charge noise” where suppressing decoherences caused by charge noise corresponds to reducing error caused by intrinsic noise )
Regarding claim 2, Nichol teaches the method of claim 1(and thus the rejection
of claim 1 is incorporated).
Nichol teaches based on the first gate time to execute a full entangling gate rotation, applying, to the gate, a third gate rotation having a third gate time less than the second gate time(where the rotation of a qubit is determined by a function of the strength of the Rabi frequency and the duration (time length) of the Rabi frequency and Rabi duration having a shorter duration than the second gate time is considered based on a time to execute a full entangling gate, applying, to the gate, a third gate rotation having a third gate time less than the second gate time) in order to determine a third error rate(Nichol, Page 4, Col. 1, Paragraph 4, “To assess the gate fidelity, we perform self-consistent quantum process tomography” where process tomography on a Rabi frequency with a third gate time to determine gate fidelity is considered determining a third error rate)
Nichol teaches and selecting the third gate rotation when the third error rate is smaller than the first error rate (Nichol, Page 11, Paragraph 3, “To find the ideal process matrix, -ideal, we start with the process matrix generated … and search through all single-qubit rotations to find the highest fidelity, given by Tr(-Xideal-X)” where, when choosing a X that has a higher fidelity/smaller error rate than the first error rate, the selection of a X entails selecting the tomographical data which contains the Rabi frequency (third gate rotation) is considered selecting the third gate rotation when the third error rate is smaller than the first error rate)
Regarding claim 3, Nichol teaches the method of claim 1(and thus the rejection
of claim 1 is incorporated).
Nichol teaches determining the second error rate after application of the second gate rotation having a second gate time (Nichol, Page 2, Col.2, Paragraph 2, “We drive qubit rotations by adding an oscillating voltage to the plunger gates, such that the total voltage ε(t) = ε0 + ε1cos(Ωt). For ε1 ≪ ε0, J(t) ≈ J(ε0) + 2jcos(Ωt), where j = ε1/2 J′(ε0) is the Rabi frequency” where the rotation of a qubit is determined by a function of the strength of the Rabi frequency and the duration (time length) of the Rabi frequency and choosing a time variable for the Rabi frequency is considered determining a gate time that will be used to execute a full entangling gate rotation)
Regarding claim 5, Nichol teaches the method of claim 1(and thus the rejection
of claim 1 is incorporated).
Nichol teaches, further comprising applying, to the gate, a waveform having a frequency determined based on the second gate rotation to perform quantum error correction for the quantum computing system(Nichol, Page 2, Col.2, Paragraph 2, “We drive qubit rotations by adding an oscillating voltage to the plunger gates, such that the total voltage ε(t) = ε0 + ε1cos(Ωt). For ε1 ≪ ε0, J(t) ≈ J(ε0) + 2jcos(Ωt), where j = ε1/2 J′(ε0) is the Rabi frequency” where the Rabi frequency is being used to rotate qubits and the use of Rabi frequencies in optimizing gate fidelity is considered a waveform having a frequency determined based on the second gate rotation to perform quantum error correction as the a Rabi frequency are waveforms that are time-varying external driving fields (such as electromagnetic waves/microwave pulses) that induces rotations of a qubit)
Regarding claim 6, Nichol teaches the method of claim 5(and thus the rejection
of claim 1 is incorporated).
Nichol teaches wherein the pair of qubits comprises a primary bit coupled to an auxiliary qubit (Nichol, Page 2, Col.1, Paragraph 2-3, “We use two singlet-triplet qubits…The two adjacent qubits are capacitively coupled”)
Regarding claim 7, Nichol teaches the method of claim 1(and thus the rejection
of claim 1 is incorporated).
Nichol teaches further comprising tuning the gate via a tunable coupling element (Nichol, Page 2, Col.1, Paragraph 3, “The two adjacent qubits are capacitively coupled, and the interaction Hamiltonian Hint = J12 σz⊗σz ” where J12 represents coupling between two qubits labeled 1 and 2 and the strength can be adjusted before, after and during operation to modify the interaction corresponds to a tunable coupling element)
Regarding claim 8, Nichol teaches the method of claim 1(and thus the rejection
of claim 1 is incorporated).
Nichol teaches wherein the tunable coupling element includes a capacitor, an inductor, or a combination thereof (Nichol, Page 2, Col.1, Paragraph 3, “The two adjacent qubits are capacitively coupled,” where being capacitively coupled typically involves a capacitor to facilitate a capacitive interaction between objects)
Regarding claim 9, Nichol teaches the method of claim 1(and thus the rejection
of claim 1 is incorporated).
Nichol teaches further comprising tuning the pair of qubits, wherein the gate is configured to provide fixed coupling (Nichol, Page 2, Col.1, Paragraph 3, “The two adjacent qubits are capacitively coupled, and the interaction Hamiltonian Hint = J12 σz⊗σz ” where J12 represents coupling between two qubits labeled 1 and 2 and this strength can be made constant during operation which is considered a fixed coupling)
Regarding claim 10, Nichol teaches the method of claim 1(and thus the rejection
of claim 1 is incorporated).
Nichol teaches wherein the pair of qubits are included in a multi-qubit architecture having a plurality of one-bit and/or two-bit gates(Nichol, Page 10, Paragraph 3, “If both qubits are driven in the rotating frame with different Rabi frequencies, they rotate around their z axes at different rates” where the different Rabi frequencies produce a plurality of one-bit or two-bit gates), including the gate. (Nichol, Page 9, Paragraph 1, “Randomized benchmarking involves concatenating many quantum gates from the Clifford group to magnify gate errors and average over all noise configurations” where Clifford group has multiple gates)
Regarding claim 13, Nichol teaches the method of claim 10(and thus the rejection
of claim 1 is incorporated).
Nichol teaches further comprising tuning the pair of qubits in a multi-bit architecture such that relatively smaller angle gates of the plurality of one-bit or two-bit gates(Nichol, Page 10, Paragraph 3, “If both qubits are driven in the rotating frame with different Rabi frequencies, they rotate around their z axes at different rates” where the different Rabi frequencies produce a plurality of one-bit or two-bit gates with different angles), have a proportionally smaller error than relatively larger-angle gates of the plurality of one-bit or two-bit gates(Nichol, Page 3, Col. 1, Paragraph 3, “As the amplitude of the oscillating voltage ε1 increases, both the Rabi and echo coherence times reach a maximum (Fig. 2b). At low drive strengths, hyperfine fluctuations in the detuning limit the coherence. At large drive strengths, charge-noise-induced fluctuations in J′(ε), which cause the Rabi rates to fluctuate in time, limit the coherence” where the use of low drive strength in Rabi oscillations will make the angle of rotation less and Nichol teaches a low drive strength will optimize fidelity of a gate and have a smaller error rate)
Regarding claims 14, Nichol teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing program instructions that are executable on a computer processor unit(Nichol, Page 11, Paragraph 2 “The maximum likelihood algorithm is implemented with the Matlab CVX library” where the implementation of Matlab CVX requires a processor and memory)
Nichol teaches select an intrinsic gate error rate threshold(Nichol, Page 1, Col 2, Paragraph 1, “Until now, two-qubit gates for singlet-triplet qubits have operated with J(ε)≫ΔBZ, and charge noise is the limiting factor in two-qubit gate fidelities…However, if ΔBZ≫J(ε)… and the qubit sensitivity to charge noise …is reduced by a factor of J(ε)/ΔBZ`, effectively mitigating decoherence due to charge noise” and Page 2, Fig. 1, “We operate the qubit with ε < 0 and J(ε)≪ΔBz, as indicated with the dashed gray box” where intrinsic errors enter through noise in ε and ε < 0 and J(ε)≪ΔBz corresponds to a threshold of intrinsic gate errors (See Nichol, Page 1, Col 1, Paragraph 2, “In each qubit, the voltage-controlled exchange interaction J(ε), where ε represents the gate voltage,”)) for the gate coupled between a pair of qubits in a quantum computing system (Nichol, Page 4, Col.1, Paragraph 4, “To assess the gate fidelity, we perform self-consistent quantum process tomography on the two qubit gate” where the fidelity is the error rate for a gate coupled between a pair of qubits and an intrinsic gate error rate is the error rate before applying waveform or signal from an external system)
Nichol teaches determine a first gate time to execute a full entangling gate rotation on the gate(Nichol, Page 2, Col.2, Paragraph 2, “We drive qubit rotations by adding an oscillating voltage to the plunger gates, such that the total voltage ε(t) = ε0 + ε1cos(Ωt). For ε1 ≪ ε0, J(t) ≈ J(ε0) + 2jcos(Ωt), where j = ε1/2 J′(ε0) is the Rabi frequency” where the rotation of a qubit is determined by a function of the strength of the Rabi frequency and the duration (time length) of the Rabi frequency and using a time variable for the Rabi frequency is considered determining a gate time that will be used to execute a full entangling gate rotation) with a first error rate less than the intrinsic gate error rate threshold (Page 2, Fig. 1, “We operate the qubit with ε < 0 and J(ε)≪ΔBz” where operating the qubit rotation with J(ε) corresponds to determining a first gate time to execute a full entangling gate rotation as ε incorporates intrinsic errors and ε is part of the Rabi frequency with a duration(time length) and Nichol, Page 4, Paragraph 4, “To assess the gate fidelity, we perform self-consistent quantum process tomography on the two-qubit gate (Fig. 4a–d), requiring 256 tomographic measurements of the two-qubit operation. We extract … on a measured tomographically complete set of input and output states” where assessing the fidelity of a gate after rotations is considered determining first error rate after a full entangling gate rotation that is less the intrinsic gate error))
Nichol teaches based on the first gate time to execute the full entangling rotation on the gate, applying, to the gate, a second gate rotation having a second gate time less than the first gate time in order(Nichol, Page 2, Col.2, Paragraph 2, “We drive qubit rotations by … Rabi frequency” where the use of a shorter duration than the first gate time in a Rabi frequency is considered based on a time to execute a full entangling gate, applying, to the gate, a second gate rotation having a second gate time less than the first gate time ) to determine a second error rate (Nichol, Page 4, Col. 1, Paragraph 4, “To assess the gate fidelity, we perform self-consistent quantum process tomography” where process tomography on a Rabi frequency with a second gate time to determine gate fidelity is considered determining a second error rate)
Nichol teaches select the second gate time as a final gate time when the second error rate is smaller than the first error rate (Nichol, Page 11, Paragraph 3, “To find the ideal process matrix, -ideal, we start with the process matrix generated … and search through all single-qubit rotations to find the highest fidelity, given by Tr(-Xideal-X)” where, when choosing a X that has a higher fidelity/smaller error rate than the first error rate, the selection of a X entails selecting the tomographical data which contains the Rabi frequency duration (a second gate time) is considered selecting the second gate time as a final gate time when the second error rate is smaller than the first error rate)
Nichol teaches operating the gate, wherein a total error rate of the quantum computing system is reduced(Nichol, Page 1, Col. 1, Paragraph 2, “In this work, we present a technique to suppress decoherence caused by charge noise” where suppressing decoherences caused by charge noise corresponds to reducing error caused by intrinsic noise )
Regarding claim 15, The rejection of claim 14 incorporated in claims 15, and further, claim 15 is rejected under the same rationale as set forth in the rejection of claims 2 respectively.
Regarding claim 16, The rejection of claim 14 incorporated in claims 16, and further, claim 16 is rejected under the same rationale as set forth in the rejection of claims 5 respectively.
Regarding claim 18, The rejection of claim 14 incorporated in claims 18, and further, claim 18 is rejected under the same rationale as set forth in the rejection of claims 5 respectively.
Regarding claim 19, The rejection of claim 18 incorporated in claim 19, and further,
claim 19 is rejected under the same rationale as set forth in the rejection of claim 6.
Regarding claims 20-23, The rejection of claim 14 incorporated in claims 20-23, and further, claims 20-23 are rejected under the same rationale as set forth in the rejection of claims 7-10 respectively.
Regarding claim 26, The rejection of claim 14 incorporated in claim 26, and further,
claim 26 is rejected under the same rationale as set forth in the rejection of claim 13.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 4 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Nichol et al.(High-fidelity entangling gate for double-quantum-dot spin Qubits) henceforth known as Nichol and further in view of Campbell(Random Compiler for Fast Hamiltonian Simulation), henceforth known as Campbell.
Regarding claim 4, Nichol teaches the method of claim 1(and thus the rejection
of claim 1 is incorporated).
Nichol does not teach; however Campbell discloses iteratively applying(Campbell, Page 2, Col. 2, FIG. 1. Pseudocode, section 5 shows iterative application based on N a sampling process from a probability distribution to select which unitary(rotation) to apply), to the gate, incrementally smaller gate rotations having incrementally smaller gate times(Campbell, Page 2, Col. 2, Paragraph 3, “The strength τj of each unitary is fixed to a constant τj = τ := tλ/N” where the unitary is defined as both the action and the time it takes divided by N gate steps and lowers the time and rotation for each gate for every N added which is considered incrementally) until an achieved error rate(Campbell, Page 3, Col. 2, Paragraph 2, “We see the total error decreases as we increase N”) exceeds the first error rate (Campbell, Page 2, Col. 1, Paragraph 3, “The gate count in this sequence will be N = Lr, so we would like to know the smallest r that suffices to achieve a desired precision ε” where desired precision ε is considered an error rate)
Regarding claim 17, The rejection of claim 14 incorporated in claims 17, and further, claim 17 is rejected under the same rationale as set forth in the rejection of claim 4 respectively.
References Nichol and Campbell are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of quantum computing hardware and simulation methods with quantum information processing.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Nichol and Campbell before him or her, to modify the qubit rotation method of Nichol to include the gate step division of qDRIFT of Campbell’s method reports to speed and cause reduce errors in quantum simulations. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been “we find that our approach can speed up quantum simulations of electronic structure Hamiltonians by several orders of magnitude” (Campbell, Page 1, Col 2, Paragraph 2)
Claim(s) 11-12 and 24-25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Nichol et al.(High-fidelity entangling gate for double-quantum-dot spin Qubits) henceforth known as Nichol and further in view of Venturelli et al.( Compiling quantum circuits to realistic hardware architectures using temporal planners), henceforth known as Venturelli.
Regarding claim 11, Nichol teaches the method of claim 10(and thus the rejection
of claim 10 is incorporated).
Nichol teaches further comprising operating, via the quantum computing system(Nichol, Page 3, Col.1, Paragraph 2, “Rotating-frame echo coherence times are also an order of magnitude longer than static exchange echo dephasing times measured in this device” where measuring coherence times of cubits in the device is considered a computing device ), the plurality of one-bit and/or two-bit gates based on a quantum algorithm (Nichol, Page 2, Col.2, Paragraph 2, “We drive qubit rotations by…the Rabi frequency” where the Rabi frequency is a quantum algorithm as it is an algorithm that works with qubit rotations in quantum space)
Nichol does not teach; however Venturelli discloses and according to a schedule(Venturelli, Page 13, Paragraph 1,“ we apply temporal planning techniques to the problem of compiling quantum circuits to realistic gate-model quantum hardware”)
References Nichol and Venturelli are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of quantum computing hardware and quantum optimization techniques.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Nichol and Venturelli before him or her, to modify the qubit rotation method of Nichol to include the scheduler of Venturelli as the scheduler provides a method of reducing runtime. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been “The temporal planners aim to provide a machine-dependent plan that minimizes makespan, while respecting all machine-dependent constraints”” (Venturelli, Page 3, Paragraph 5)
Regarding claim 12, Nichol-Venturelli teaches the method of claim 11(and thus the rejection of claim 11 is incorporated).
Venturelli additionally discloses further comprising providing the schedule via a compiler of the quantum computing system (Venturelli, Page 15, Paragraph 3, “This temporal planning approach to quantum circuit compilation should be of great interest to the community developing low-level quantum compilers for generic architectures … and to designers of machine-instructions languages for quantum computing”), wherein the schedule is provided for operation the plurality of one-bit and/or two-bit gates(Venturelli, Page 9, Paragraph 2, “Temporal planning actions are created to model:(i) 2-qubit SWAP gates,(ii) 2-qubit P S-gates, and (iii) 1-qubit MIX gates” where the actions the schedule can operate include using gates that include rotational gate. Specifically P-S gates(2 qubits) and MIX gates(1 qubit) is considered having a scheduler that operates multiple small angle one-bit and/or two-bit gates) to minimize a total runtime of the quantum algorithm(Venturelli, Page 3, Paragraph 5,“ The most common objective function in temporal planning is to minimize the plan makespan, i.e. the shortest total plan execution time. This objective matches well with the objective of our targeted quantum circuit compilation problem.” where makespan is considered, at least in part of, the total runtime of a quantum algorithm and minimizing the makespan is considered minimizing the total runtime of a quantum algorithm)
References Nichol and Venturelli are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of quantum computing hardware and quantum optimization techniques.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Nichol and Venturelli before him or her, to modify the qubit rotation method of Nichol to include the scheduler of Venturelli as the scheduler provides a method of reducing runtime. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been “The temporal planners aim to provide a machine-dependent plan that minimizes makespan, while respecting all machine-dependent constraints”” (Venturelli, Page 3, Paragraph 5)
Regarding claim 24, The rejection of claim 15 incorporated in claim 24, and further,
claim 24 is rejected under the same rationale as set forth in the rejection of claim 11.
Regarding claim 25, The rejection of claim 15 incorporated in claim 25, and further,
claim 25 is rejected under the same rationale as set forth in the rejection of claim 12.
Response to Arguments
Non-statutory matter and 112 rejection as stated in previous rejection have been overcome with the amended language. Applicant’s arguments 101 filed 09/26/2025 with respect to 101 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of 101 has been withdrawn.
A breakdown for 102/103 can be found below:
Applicant appears to argue on pages 13-14 that gate fidelity used in Nichol is not the same as an intrinsic gate error rate and therefor fails to disclose “selecting an intrinsic gate error rate threshold”.
Nichol teaches selecting an intrinsic gate error rate threshold for a gate coupled between a pair of qubits as to assess fidelity the quantum process tomography on the two qubit gate is evaluated using elements that incorporate the intrinsic gate error and charge noise ε and evaluated using the threshold of ε < 0 and J(ε)≪ΔBz.
See below for relevant sections:
(Nichol, Page 4, Col.1, Paragraph 4, “To assess the gate fidelity, we perform self-consistent quantum process tomography on the two qubit gate”)
(Nichol, Page 1, Col 2, Paragraph 1, “Until now, two-qubit gates for singlet-triplet qubits have operated with J(ε)≫ΔBZ, and charge noise is the limiting factor in two-qubit gate fidelities…However, if ΔBZ≫J(ε)… and the qubit sensitivity to charge noise …is reduced by a factor of J(ε)/ΔBZ`, effectively mitigating decoherence due to charge noise”)
(Nichol, Page 2, Fig. 1, “We operate the qubit with ε < 0 and J(ε)≪ΔBz, as indicated with the dashed gray box” where intrinsic errors enter through noise in ε and ε < 0 and J(ε)≪ΔBz corresponds to a threshold of intrinsic gate errors
(Nichol, Page 4, Col.1, Paragraph 4, “To assess the gate fidelity, we perform self-consistent quantum process tomography on the two qubit gate” where the fidelity is the error rate for a gate coupled between a pair of qubits and an intrinsic gate error rate is the error rate before applying waveform or signal from an external system)
Applicant appears to argue on pages 14-15 that Nichol does not disclose determining gate times to execute a full entangling gate rotation with errors less than the intrinsic gate error threshold or previous error rate.
Examiner respectfully disagrees as Nichol states “To assess the gate fidelity, we perform self-consistent quantum process tomography..on the two qubit gate…requiring 256 tomographic measurements of the two-qubit operation. We extract a maximum gate fidelity of 90±1% based on a measured tomographically complete set of input and output states”(Page 4, col. 2, Paragraph 3) that they select/extract the maximum gate fidelity(that includes intrinsic errors) for entanglement out of 256 measurements.
Nichol, Page 2, Col.2, Paragraph 2, “We drive qubit rotations by adding an oscillating voltage to the plunger gates, such that the total voltage ε(t) = ε0 + ε1cos(Ωt). For ε1 ≪ ε0, J(t) ≈ J(ε0) + 2jcos(Ωt), where j = ε1/2 J′(ε0) is the Rabi frequency” where the rotation of a qubit is determined by a function of the strength of the Rabi frequency and the duration (time length) of the Rabi frequency and using a time variable for the Rabi frequency is considered determining a gate time that will be used to execute a full entangling gate rotation
Applicant appears to argue that there is no prima facie case for the combination of arts has been made.
Examiner respectfully disagrees as both prior arts Nichol and Campell are in the same field of endeavor of quantum computing and simulations methods with both dates being published or filed before the current application. Further, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, the cited section (Campbell, Page 1, Col 2, Paragraph 2, “we find that our approach can speed up quantum simulations of electronic structure Hamiltonians by several orders of magnitude”) is viewed as a motivation for Nichol to incorporate Campbell as Nichol uses Hamiltonians and both papers are focused on quantum gates and rotations.
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 CHARLES JEFFREY JONES JR whose telephone number is (703)756-1414. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8:00 - 5:00 EST.
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/C.J.J./Examiner, Art Unit 2122
/KAKALI CHAKI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2122