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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 1-14 remain pending and are ready for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 08/02/2024, was filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 recites the term “QUBO”, Applicant must amend the claim to define what the term stands for. For example “A calculation model that is applicable to an Ising model or a Quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO)”.
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 1-14 are 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 the claims recite “A calculation model that is applicable to an Ising model or a QUBO”, but recite no hardware in the system to perform the claimed steps.
The claims lack the necessary physical articles or objects to constitute a machine or manufacture within the meaning of 35 USC 101. One of ordinary skill in the art may conclude that the steps associated with digital content generation may reasonably be implemented as mere software routines since no requisite computer hardware, such as a processor and memory, is recited as elements of the claimed invention The claims lack the necessary physical articles or objects to constitute a machine or manufacture within the meaning of 35 USC 101. They are clearly not a series of steps or acts to be a process nor are they a combination of chemical compounds to be a composition of matter. As such, they fail to fall within a statutory category. They are, at best, functional descriptive material.
Therefore, the claims contain non- statutory subject matter that cannot be patented. To overcome the rejection, the claims must contain hardware or a non-transitory computer readable medium that is functionally and structurally interconnected with the software. Expressly include in the body of the claim with at least one element, a statement which includes the hardware that the software described needs. When functional descriptive material is recorded on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, it becomes structurally and functionally interrelated to the medium and will be statutory in most cases since use of technology permits the function of the descriptive material to be realized. Compare In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 1583-84, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1035 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Without any proper physical components required in the claims, Claims 1-8 are directed to non-statutory material.
Claims 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the term “A storage medium” can be directed to a transitory signal, carrier wave, or similar embodiment capable of storing information.
Regarding Claim 12, the scope of the recited “A storage medium” encompasses transitory media such as signals or carrier waves, where, as here the Specification does not limit the “A storage medium” to non-transitory forms. Even when a product has a physical or tangible form, it may not fall within a statutory category. For instance, a transitory signal, while physical and real, does not possess concrete structure that would qualify as a device or part under the definition of a machine, is not a tangible article or commodity under the definition of a manufacture (even though it is man-made and physical in that it exists in the real world and has tangible causes and effects), and is not composed of matter such that it would qualify as a composition of matter. Nuijten, 500 F.3d at 1356-1357, 84 USPQ2d at 1501-03. As such, a transitory, propagating signal does not fall within any statutory category. Mentor Graphics Corp. v. EVE-USA, Inc., 851 F.3d 1275, 1294, 112 USPQ2d 1120, 1133 (Fed. Cir. 2017); Nuijten, 500 F.3d at 1356-1357, 84 USPQ2d at 1501-03. See MPEP 2106.03,I [R-08.2017]. The claim in using the term “storage medium”, the Spec does not appear to limit “storage medium” to non-transitory only embodiments.
Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1:
Independent claim 1 recites a calculation model, independent claim 9 recites a method, independent claim 12 recites a storage medium and independent claim 14 information processing device. Therefore, step 1 is satisfied for claims 9-11 only claims 1-8 and 12-14 failed.
Step 2A Prong One:
The claim(s) recite(s) mental process steps of:
(in claim 1):
a plurality of Ising bits and a first auxiliary bit, wherein each of the plurality of Ising bits and the first auxiliary bit is a binary variable, the plurality of Ising bits represent each of the options in combinatorial optimization problems as a combination of the variables, and the first auxiliary bit indicates a value obtained by performing logical calculation on two or more values among a plurality of values indicating the options. (this step recite mathematical algorithms that is applied and performed in a computing environment—i.e., an abstract idea. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(I]); see also Elec. Power Grp., 830 F.3d at 1354 (“[A]nalyzing information by steps people go through in their minds, or by mathematical algorithms, without more, [are] essentially mental processes within the abstract-idea category.”’). ).
(in claim 9):
comparing a value of the first auxiliary bit with a result of performing the same logical calculation as when a value of the first auxiliary bit is obtained for an Ising bit corresponding to a value used in the logical calculation of the first auxiliary bit. (this step recite mathematical algorithms that is applied and performed in a computing environment—i.e., an abstract idea. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(I]); see also Elec. Power Grp., 830 F.3d at 1354 (“[A]nalyzing information by steps people go through in their minds, or by mathematical algorithms, without more, [are] essentially mental processes within the abstract-idea category.”’). ).
Claim 12 and 14 include the same limitations/steps of claims 1 and 9
Step 2A Prong Two:
The claim/s recites the combination of the additional elements, the additional elements in the claim are:
applicable to an Ising model or a QUBO
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application See MPEP 2106.04(d)(I) and 2106.05(f).
Step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above, the additional elements amount to nothing more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer component(s) and insignificant extra-solution activity. These cannot provide an inventive concept, and thus the claims are patent-ineligible.
Claims 2-8, 10-11, 13 directed to the same abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recites mathematical concept. There are no additional elements recited in these claims that integrates the abstract idea into a practical application or amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are rejected under the same abstract idea as claim 1.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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 of this title, 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 nonobviousness.
Claims 1-9, 12 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Israel et al., U.S. Pub No: US 20150205759 A1 (Hereinafter “Israel”) in view of Dunn et al., U.S. Patent No: US 10223084 B1 (Hereinafter “Dunn”).
Regarding claim 1, Israel teaches A calculation model that is applicable to an Ising model or a QUBO (see abstract), comprising:
a plurality of Ising bits and a first auxiliary bit (see paragraph [0065-0067, 0072], wherein variables s represent Ising bits and the ancillary variables represent auxiliary bits),
wherein each of the plurality of Ising bits and the first auxiliary bit is a binary variable (see paragraph [0063, 0065-0067, 0072], wherein the decision variable and the ancillary variables characterized as Boolean/binary variables),
the plurality of Ising bits represent each of the options in combinatorial optimization problems as a combination of the variables (see paragraph [0023], wherein applying Ising penalty framework to constrained optimization problem, where configurations of decision variables constitute feasible/infeasible candidate solutions).
Israel fails to explicitly disclose the limitation below
Dunn discloses the first auxiliary bit indicates a value obtained by performing logical calculation on two or more values among a plurality of values indicating the options (Dunn, see col.10 line [54-60], wherein ancillary variable can be a single qubit representing the result of a logical Boolean operation on two qubits ).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of Israel to include the missing limitation, as taught by Dunn, since doing so would allow the system to reduce the amount of human work required to generate efficient QA and/or AQC programs and increase the overall efficiency of the quantum computer itself and the quantum computing system. (see Ahmed col. Line 47-50).
Regarding claim 2, Israel in view of Dunn further teach wherein the logical calculation is an exclusive OR (Dunn, see col.11 line 35-40 and col. 13 line 1-9).
Regarding claim 3, Israel in view of Dunn further teach wherein the logical calculation is a logical disjunction (Dunn, see col.11 line 35-40 and col. 13 line 1-9).
Regarding claim 4, Israel in view of Dunn further teach wherein the logical calculation is a logical conjunction (Dunn, see col.11 line 35-40 and col. 13 line 1-9).
Regarding claim 5, Israel in view of Dunn further teach a second auxiliary bit, wherein the second auxiliary bit indicates a value obtained by performing a logical disjunction of two or more values among a plurality of values indicating the options (Dunn, see col.10 line [54-60], wherein both AND and OR operations disclosed by Dunn (in col.11). Further, generation of multiple ancillary variables as needed during complication).
Regarding claim 6, Israel in view of Dunn further teach wherein the plurality of Ising bits perform binary representation on the options (Dunn, see col. 10 line 33-38).
Regarding claim 7, Israel in view of Dunn further teach a third auxiliary bit, wherein the third auxiliary bit indicates a value obtained by performing a logical calculation on a value of the first auxiliary bit and a value that is not used in the logical calculation to obtain the first auxiliary bit among a plurality of values indicating the options (Dunn, see col.10 line [54-60], wherein both AND and OR operations disclosed by Dunn (in col.11). Further, generation of multiple ancillary variables as needed during complication).
Regarding claim 8, Israel in view of Dunn further teach wherein the Ising model or the QUBO is executed by quantum annealing machines (Dunn, see col. 16 line 45-50).
Regarding claim 9, Israel in view of Dunn further teach An information processing method using the calculation model according to claim 1,comprising:
a comparison process of comparing a value of the first auxiliary bit with a result of performing the same logical calculation as when a value of the first auxiliary bit is obtained for an Ising bit corresponding to a value used in the logical calculation of the first auxiliary bit (Israel, see paragraph [0116], wherein comparing between variables is established).
Regarding claim 12, Israel in view of Dunn further teach A storage medium that stores a calculation program, the calculation program comprising:
a calculation program that performs a calculation using the calculation model according to claim 1 (see claim 1 above); and
a comparison program that compares the value of the first auxiliary bit with a result of performing the same logical calculation as when a value of the first auxiliary bit is obtained for an Ising bit corresponding to the value used in the logical calculation of the first auxiliary bit (see claim 9).
Regarding claim 14, Israel in view of Dunn further teach An information processing device comprising the calculation program according to claim 12 (see claim 12).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHER N ALGIBHAH whose telephone number is (571)272-0718. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Aleksandr Kerzhner can be reached on (571) 270-1760. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-1264.
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/MAHER N ALGIBHAH/Primary Examiner , Art Unit 2165
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