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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Rams (Marek M Rams et al 2016 New J. Phys. 18 123034).
Regarding claim 1, Rams teaches a method for engineering first and second-order quantum phase transitions in a disordered quantum system (§1, “In this work, we introduce an inhomogeneous driving strategy for a weakly disordered Ising spin chain by a transverse magnetic field with a smooth step-like spatial profile that sweeps out the chain from side to side, as illustrated in figure 1”, also see Figure 1), the method comprising:
controlling the disordered quantum system using inhomogeneous control fields (Equation (3)), wherein
the inhomogeneous control fields create an effective gap between low energy states and higher energy states of the quantum system (§2, “The smooth front of the inhomogeneous field opens up an energy gap, that allows for adiabatic evolution”, §3, “Δnf”).
Regarding claim 2, Rams teaches all of the limitations of claim 1, wherein
the phase transitions comprise non-adiabatic phase transitions (§4, “Notice however that in both cases the value of the residual energy is almost that of an adiabatic transition” – “almost” adiabatic is non-adiabatic).
Regarding claim 3, Rams teaches all of the limitations of claim 1, wherein
each inhomogeneous control field drives a respective portion of the disordered quantum system (Figure 1 and Equation (3)).
Regarding claim 4, Rams teaches all of the limitations of claim 1, wherein
the inhomogeneous control fields comprise transverse fields that can be locally modulated (§1, “In this work, we introduce an inhomogeneous driving strategy for a weakly disordered Ising spin chain by a transverse magnetic field with a smooth step-like spatial profile that sweeps out the chain from side to side, as illustrated in figure 1”, also see Figure 1, also see Equation 3).
Regarding claim 5, Rams teaches all of the limitations of claim 1, wherein
controlling the disordered quantum system further comprises driving, by the inhomogeneous control fields, the disordered quantum system across a quantum phase transition (Figure 1).
Regarding claim 6, Rams teaches all of the limitations of claim 1, wherein
the inhomogeneous control fields comprises one or more critical fronts, and wherein the velocities of the one or more critical fronts are below a threshold value that conserves effective inhomogeneity (Equation (3), §1, “While for fast driving a homogeneous control field proves advantageous, in slower schemes for which the critical front does not exceed the threshold velocity the inhomogeneous protocol with a smooth front extended over several spins turns out to be optimal, effectively reaching the adiabatic limit. We close with a discussion and conclusions in section 5.)
Regarding claim 7, Rams teaches all of the limitations of claim 1, wherein
controlling the disordered quantum system further comprises applying a causality control strategy (Equation 3).
Regarding claim 8, Rams according to claim 1 teaches an apparatus which performs the operations of claim 8 and which further comprises quantum hardware comprising a quantum system, on or more classical processors, wherein the apparatus is configured to perform the operations of claim 1 for engineering first and second-order quantum phase transitions in a disordered quantum system (§5, “Our results can prove useful in the design of novel quantum annealing protocols with inhomogeneous control fields on disordered spin systems with the potential to outperform conventional schemes [54] and might be applicable to open systems [55]. Inhomogeneous schedules with controllable local magnetic field can be implemented on the next generations of quantum annealers that are currently under development by D-Wave System and the Google Quantum AI laboratory.”)
Regarding claims 9-14, Rams according to claims 2-7 teaches the limitations of claims 9-14.
Regarding claim 15, Rams teaches all of the limitations of claim 15, wherein
the quantum hardware further comprises one or more control devices that operate on the quantum system (§5, “Our results can prove useful in the design of novel quantum annealing protocols with inhomogeneous control fields on disordered spin systems with the potential to outperform conventional schemes [54] and might be applicable to open systems [55]. Inhomogeneous schedules with controllable local magnetic field can be implemented on the next generations of quantum annealers that are currently under development by D-Wave System and the Google Quantum AI laboratory.”)
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.
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.
Claim(s) 8-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rams (Marek M Rams et al 2016 New J. Phys. 18 123034) in view of Mohseni (US20160328659A1).
Regarding claim 8, Rams according to claim 1 teaches an apparatus which performs the operations of claim 8 and which is further implemented on a quantum system (§5, “Our results can prove useful in the design of novel quantum annealing protocols with inhomogeneous control fields on disordered spin systems with the potential to outperform conventional schemes [54] and might be applicable to open systems [55]. Inhomogeneous schedules with controllable local magnetic field can be implemented on the next generations of quantum annealers that are currently under development by D-Wave System and the Google Quantum AI laboratory.”)
Assuming, arguendo, that Rams does not disclose quantum hardware comprising a quantum system and one or more classical processors for implementing the claimed operations, the following is provided:
Mohseni teaches implementing a quantum annealing protocol via quantum hardware comprising a quantum system (Figure 6: QA HARDWARE) and one or more classical processors (Figure 6: CONTROL SYSTEM, also see ¶33-34).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Rams to implement the disclosed operations/methodology via quantum hardware comprising a quantum system and one or more classical processors in order to realize the disclosed inhomogeneous control scheme.
Regarding claim 15, Rams as modified teaches all of the limitations of claim 8, wherein the quantum hardware further comprises one or more control devices that operate on the quantum system (Figure 6: CONTROL SYSTEM).
Regarding claims 9-14, Rams as modified teaches the limitations of claims 9-14 in the same manner as Rams applied to claims 2-7.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
“Topology of cosmic domains and strings”, T W B Kibble 1976 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 9 1387.
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/SCHYLER S SANKS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2129
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