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 .
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL.
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 extension fee 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.
Status of the Application
The following is a Final Office Action in response to Examiner's communication of 11/19/2025, Applicant, on 02/13/2026.
Status of Claims
Claims 1, 7-8, 13-14, 17-18, and 21-22 are currently amended.
Claims 4-6 and 12 are canceled.
Claims 1-3, 7-11, and 13-22 are currently pending following this response.
New matter
No new matter has been added to the amended claims.
Response to Arguments - 35 USC § 103
The arguments have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
The new independent claim 14 is a combination of subject matter of old claim 1 (as filed on 8/01/2023) and old claim 12 (as filed on 8/01/2023). Both old claim 1 and old claim 12 were rejected by the Examiner in the first office action on the merit dated 11/19/2025.
In conclusion, the Examiner maintains the rejections of claim 14 under 35 USC § 103 in the present office action.
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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 non-obviousness.
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 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 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being un-patentable over Nippon in view of Hiroki, in further view of science, and in further view of (EDAMATSU, Keiichi, Entanglement Generation: Devices and Applications. Proceedings of the IEICE General Conference 2010.) pp. SS-4, SS-5, p. SS-5, left column, line 11 to right column, line 1, fig. 2. Herein after Keiichi.
Regarding claim 14. Nippon teaches A quantum entanglement device comprising: a group-IV semiconductor; [Nippon, para. 0025, Nippon teaches “III-V group semiconductors”] and a scissor-type quantum entanglement element consisting of at least one atom on a surface of said group-IV semiconductor and two hydrogen atoms or two deuterium atoms coupled to terminations of said atom [Nippon, para. 0009, Nippon teaches “As shown in FIG. 1, porous silicon has a tree-like column structure with a diameter of 1 nm to 10 nm, and the surface is terminated with hydrogen. This hydrogen-terminated Si has one of the structures SiH1, SiH22 and SiH33, but the structure that exists most stably is SiH22”]
Nippon discloses that the device discussed above can be used in light emitting elements used in optical communications, optical integrated circuits, light sources, and the like, Nippon does not specifically teach; however, Hiroki teaches in page 44, left column, line 1 to page 45, left column, line 1, fig. 4 and 5, the use a light-emitting element made of silicon in a quantum entanglement device, a quantum entangled photon pair generator, a quantum entangled photon pair laser device, a quantum computer, a quantum communication device, and a quantum cryptographic device. It would have been easy for a person skilled in the art to conceive of applying said well-known feature to the invention disclosed by Nippon since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, with the predictable results of quantum entanglement.
Nippon in view of Hiroki does not specifically teach; however, Science teaches in paragraphs [0003], [0004] a scissor-type element comprising at least one atom in the surface of the silicon and two deuterium atoms bonded to the terminus of said atom, it is well known to replace the two terminally bonded hydrogen atoms with two deuterium atoms in order to stabilize SiH2, which is the termination of the silicon surface. It would have been easy for a person skilled in the art to conceive of applying said well-known feature to the invention disclosed by Nippon and Hiroki since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, with the predictable results of quantum entanglement.
Nippon in view of Hiroki, in further view of science does not specifically teach, however; Keiichi teaches, wherein said scissor-type quantum entanglement element has a triplet excited level between a singlet ground level and a singlet excited level, a difference between said singlet ground level and said triplet excited level being a same as a difference between said triplet excited level and said singlet excited level, and wherein an entangled photon pair is generated by a cascade transition from said singlet excited level via a spin angular moment m=+1 state of said triplet excited level to said singlet ground level and a cascade transition from said singlet excited level via a spin angular moment m=-1 state of said triplet excited level to said singlet ground level (see p. SS-5, left column, line 11 to right column, line 1, fig. 2). Further, paragraph [0044] of the description of the instant application discusses when quantum entangled photon pairs are generated by cascade transition, it is highly probable that phonon pairs are also generated at the same time. It would have been easy for a person skilled in the art to conceive of applying said well-known feature to the invention disclosed by Nippon in view of Hiroki, and in further view of science since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, with the predictable results of quantum entanglement.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendments and arguments dated 02/13/2026 necessitated the updating of the 35 USC § 103 rejections of claim 14 (New independent claim) presented in the present Office Action. Rejections of claims 1, 4-5, 10-11, and 16-22 under 35 USC § 103 has been withdrawn by the Examiner due to rolling claims 5-6 into the independent claims. 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).
Any inquiry concerning this communication from the Examiner should be directed to Abdallah El-Hagehassan whose contact information is (571) 272-0819 and Abdallah.el-hagehassan@uspto.gov The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday- Friday 8 am to 5 pm.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Rutao Wu can be reached on (571) 272-6045. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/ABDALLAH A EL-HAGE HASSAN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3623
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