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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 06/12/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 3 and rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, 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.
The term “useful” in claim 3 and 4 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “useful” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. There is no definitive measure of how something is "useful" for a particular function. The usefulness of a method, object, entity, etc. is determined by the user of said entity..
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 1 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because independent Claim 1 recites, in part, using a non-quantum computer. This language does not specify the required non-transitory nature of the computer and therefore could be interpreted as including signals per se.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-5 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1 analysis:
Independent Claim 1 recites, in part, a method for calculating a value, therefore falling into the statutory category of process.
Regarding Claim 1:
Step 2A: Prong 1 analysis:
Claim 1 recites in part:
“/1/ expressing the unitary operator as an ordered decomposition product of at least one Pauli rotation, multiplied by an identity operator or by a Clifford operator different from said identity operator, each Pauli rotation equalling a sum of the identity operator multiplied by cosine of half of a rotation angle of said Pauli rotation and a first Pauli operator multiplied by sine of the half of said rotation angle and by opposite of imaginary unit”. As drafted and under its broadest reasonable interpretation, this limitation covers a mathematical calculation.
“expressing the observable as a linear combination of second Pauli operators, or if step /1/ involves a Clifford operator that is different from the identity operator: base-transforming the observable using the Clifford operator and expressing the base-transformed observable as a linear combination of second Pauli operators”. As drafted and under its broadest reasonable interpretation, this limitation covers a mathematical calculation.
“/3/ expressing each first Pauli operator as a first sum of transfer operators that each select one coordinate of a quantum state expressed in a calculation base and transfer the selected coordinate onto a selected base state, the selected coordinates and the selected base states, and also respective phases of the transfer operators in said first sum being determined separately for said first Pauli operator”. As drafted and under its broadest reasonable interpretation, this limitation covers a mathematical calculation.
“/4/ calculating a final state by applying each Pauli rotation as expressed in step /3/,in a chained manner from the initial quantum state according to the ordered decomposition product of the unitary operator obtained in step /1/”. As drafted and under its broadest reasonable interpretation, this limitation covers a mathematical calculation.
“/5/ expressing each second Pauli operator as a second sum of transfer operators that each select one coordinate of a quantum state expressed in the calculation base and transfer the selected coordinate onto a selected base state, the selected coordinates and the selected base states, and also respective phases of the transfer operators in said second sum being determined separately for said second Pauli operator”. As drafted and under its broadest reasonable interpretation, this limitation covers a mathematical calculation.
“/6/ for each second Pauli operator and using the second sum obtained in step /5/ for said second Pauli operator, calculating a contribution value as a result of right- and left-combination of said second Pauli operator with the final state calculated in step /4/”. As drafted and under its broadest reasonable interpretation, this limitation covers a mathematical calculation.
“/7/ inputting the contribution values calculated in step /6/ into the linear combination obtained in step /2/ for the observable or base-transformed observable, so as to obtain as a calculation result the value of the observable sampled out of the quantum state”. As drafted and under its broadest reasonable interpretation, this limitation covers a mathematical calculation.
Accordingly, at Step 2A: Prong 1, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2A: Prong 2 analysis:
The claim does not recite any additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2B analysis:
In accordance with Step 2B, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more that the judicial exception.
Regarding Claim 2:
Step 2A: Prong 1 analysis:
Claim 2 recites in part:
“wherein, for each first or second Pauli operator involved in steps /3/ and /5/, the transfer operators and the respective phases of said transfer operators in the first or second sum are obtained from a x-vector and a z-vector both of length n and determined for said first or second Pauli operator, where n is a qubit number of the quantum state and an integer index q is numbering the qubits of the quantum state according to the calculation base, and wherein a qth coordinate of the x-vector equals unity if said first or second Pauli operator acts as X-Pauli 2x2 operator or Y-Pauli 2x2 operator onto the qth qubit of any quantum state expressed in the calculation base, otherwise equals zero, and a qth coordinate of the z-vector equals unity if said first or second Pauli operator acts as Z-Pauli 2x2 operator or Y-Pauli 2x2 operator onto the qth qubit of any quantum state expressed in the calculation base, otherwise equals zero”. As drafted and under its broadest reasonable interpretation, this limitation covers a mathematical concept.
Accordingly, at Step 2A: Prong 1, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2A: Prong 2 analysis:
The claim does not recite any additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2B analysis:
In accordance with Step 2B, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more that the judicial exception.
Regarding Claim 3:
Step 2A: Prong 2 analysis:
The judicial exception is not integrated into practical application. In particular, the claim recites the additional elements of:
“wherein the observable is useful in a variational algorithm”. This limitation merely indicates a field of use or technological environment in which the judicial exception is performed (variational algorithm) and thus fails to add an inventive concept to the claims. See MPEP 2106.05(h).
Accordingly at Step 2A: Prong 2, the additional elements individually or in combination do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2B analysis:
In accordance with Step 2B, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more that the judicial exception.
The additional element(s) of “wherein the observable is useful in a variational algorithm” is/are directed to particular field(s) of use (variational algorithm) (MPEP 2106.05(h)) and therefore do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea, and thus the claim is subject-matter ineligible.
Accordingly, at Step 2B, the additional elements individually or in combination do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding Claim 4:
Step 2A: Prong 2 analysis:
The judicial exception is not integrated into practical application. In particular, the claim recites the additional elements of:
“wherein the observable is useful in applications pertaining to quantum chemistry, combinatorial optimization and machine learning”. This limitation merely indicates a field of use or technological environment in which the judicial exception is performed (quantum chemistry, combinatorial optimization and machine learning) and thus fails to add an inventive concept to the claims. See MPEP 2106.05(h).
Accordingly at Step 2A: Prong 2, the additional elements individually or in combination do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2B analysis:
In accordance with Step 2B, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more that the judicial exception.
The additional element(s) of “wherein the observable is useful in applications pertaining to quantum chemistry, combinatorial optimization and machine learning” is/are directed to particular field(s) of use (quantum chemistry, combinatorial optimization and machine learning) (MPEP 2106.05(h)) and therefore do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea, and thus the claim is subject-matter ineligible.
Accordingly, at Step 2B, the additional elements individually or in combination do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding Claim 5:
Step 2A: Prong 2 analysis:
The judicial exception is not integrated into practical application. In particular, the claim recites the additional elements of:
“A non-transitory computer-readable storage device comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more non-quantum processors, the one or more non-quantum processors perform the method of claim 1”. This additional element is recited at a high level of generality such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component (storage device) (See MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Accordingly at Step 2A: Prong 2, the additional elements individually or in combination do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2B analysis:
In accordance with Step 2B, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more that the judicial exception.
As discussed above, the additional element(s) of “A non-transitory computer-readable storage device comprising instructions that, when executed by one or more non-quantum processors, the one or more non-quantum processors perform the method of claim 1” is/are recited at a high-level of generality such that it/they amount(s) to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components (storage device) (See MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Accordingly, at Step 2B, the additional elements individually or in combination do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
WO2021099365 – a method of operating a quantum computer using a classical computer in order to estimate a value of an observable for a physical system represented by a quantum operator
Martiel, S., & de Brugière, T. G. (2022). Architecture aware compilation of quantum circuits via lazy synthesis. arXiv [Quant-Ph]. doi:10.22331/q-2022-06-07-729 – two concrete compilation algorithms based on this meta-heuristic and compare their performances to SWAP insertion techniques for several standard classes of quantum circuits
Schmitz, A. T., Sawaya, N. P. D., Johri, S., & Matsuura, A. Y. (2023). Graph Optimization Perspective for Low-Depth Trotter-Suzuki Decomposition. arXiv [Quant-Ph]. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/2103.08602 – map a given Trotter-Suzuki decomposition to a constrained path on a graph which we deem the Pauli Frame Graph
Khalate, P., Wu, X.-C., Premaratne, S., Hogaboam, J., Holmes, A., Schmitz, A., … Matsuura, A. Y. (2022). An LLVM-based C++ Compiler Toolchain for Variational Hybrid Quantum-Classical Algorithms and Quantum Accelerators. arXiv [Quant-Ph]. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/2202.11142 – a novel Executable and Linking Format (ELF) for Quantum and create a quantum device compiler component in the LLVM framework to compile the quantum part of the C++ source and reuse the host compiler in the LLVM framework to compile the classical computing part of the C++ source
Guerreschi, G. G., & Smelyanskiy, M. (2017). Practical optimization for hybrid quantum-classical algorithms. arXiv [Quant-Ph]. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/1701.01450 – this study introduces quasi-Newton optimization methods in the general context of hybrid variational algorithms and presents quantitative results for the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm
US 20230418896 A1 – solving a set of (non)linear differential equations, DEs, using a hybrid system comprising a classical computer and a quantum computer
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/COREY SACKALOSKY/Examiner, Art Unit 2128
/OMAR F FERNANDEZ RIVAS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2128
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