DETAILED ACTION
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 § 103
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-6, 12, 14-17, 19, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McEwen et al (“Resisting high-energy impact events through gap engineering in superconducting qubit arrays”) in view of Bengtsson (“Parametric frequency conversion in two coupled superconducting resonators”).
Regarding claim 1, McEwen discloses a reset circuit [Figure 1; Abstract] comprising:
wherein the resonator structure [Figure S1] comprises a superconducting material characterized by a superconducting energy gap [supplementary material page 4 column 1; page 2 column 1]
wherein an energy corresponding to the first frequency is below the superconducting energy gap, and an energy corresponding to the second frequency is above the superconducting energy gap [Table S3; page 2 column 1; page 4 column 1]
McEwen does not explicitly disclose
a resonator structure configured to resonate at a first frequency and a second frequency
a frequency converter configured to convert an excitation of the resonator structure from the first frequency to the second frequency
Bengtsson discloses
a resonator structure configured to resonate at a first frequency and a second frequency [Section 2.3 and Section 2.3.1]
a frequency converter configured to convert an excitation of the resonator structure from the first frequency to the second frequency [Section 2.3 and Section 2.3.1]
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have included first and second frequencies and a frequency converter as taught by Bengtsson in the circuit of McEwen for the purpose of improving the frequency control.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of McEwen and Bengtsson, as applied to claim 1, discloses wherein the frequency converter comprises a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) [Section 2.3 Bengtsson].
Regarding claim 3, the combination of McEwen and Bengtsson, as applied to claim 1, discloses wherein the frequency converter comprises a parametric coupler [Section 2.3 Bengtsson].
Regarding claim 4, the combination of McEwen and Bengtsson, as applied to claim 3, discloses wherein the parametric coupler is configured to parametrically couple a fundamental frequency of the resonator structure with a harmonic frequency of the resonator structure [Section 2.3.1 Bengtsson; Abstract Bengtsson].
Regarding claim 5, the combination of McEwen and Bengtsson, as applied to claim 1, discloses a flux circuit configured to apply a flux pulse to the frequency converter [Figure 3.2 Bengtsson].
Regarding claim 6, the combination of McEwen and Bengtsson, as applied to claim 5, discloses wherein the flux circuit is configured to apply an oscillatory pump pulse to the frequency converter [Section 2.3 Bengtsson].
Regarding claim 12, McEwen discloses a method for resetting a qubit [Figure 1; Abstract], comprising:
swapping an excitation of the qubit into a reset circuit to provide a swapped excitation [Figure 1; Abstract]
wherein the resonator structure [Figure S1] comprises a superconducting material characterized by a superconducting energy gap [supplementary material page 4 column 1; page 2 column 1]
wherein an energy corresponding to the first frequency is below the superconducting energy gap, and an energy corresponding to the second frequency is above the superconducting energy gap [Table S3; page 2 column 1; page 4 column 1]
McEwen does not explicitly disclose
wherein the reset circuit comprises a resonator structure configured to resonate at a first frequency and a second frequency
a frequency converter configured to convert an excitation of the resonator structure from the first frequency to the second frequency
converting the swapped excitation to the second frequency
Bengtsson discloses
wherein the reset circuit comprises a resonator structure configured to resonate at a first frequency and a second frequency [Section 2.3 and Section 2.3.1]
a frequency converter configured to convert an excitation of the resonator structure from the first frequency to the second frequency [Section 2.3 and Section 2.3.1]
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have included first and second frequencies and a frequency converter as taught by Bengtsson in the method of McEwen for the purpose of improving the frequency control.
Regarding claim 14, the combination of McEwen and Bengtsson, as applied to claim 12, discloses wherein the frequency converter comprises a parametric coupler configured to parametrically couple a fundamental frequency of the resonator structure with a harmonic frequency of the resonator structure, and converting the swapped excitation comprises activating a coupling between the fundamental frequency and the harmonic frequency [Section 2.3.1 Bengtsson; Abstract Bengtsson].
Regarding claim 15, the combination of McEwen and Bengtsson, as applied to claim 14, discloses wherein activating a coupling comprises applying a flux pulse [Figure 3.2 Bengtsson].
Regarding claim 16, the combination of McEwen and Bengtsson, as applied to claim 15, discloses wherein the flux pulse is an oscillatory pump pulse [Section 2.3 Bengtsson].
Regarding claim 17, the combination of McEwen and Bengtsson, as applied to claim 16, discloses wherein the oscillatory pump pulse has an oscillation frequency within 10 percent of a difference between the first frequency and the second frequency [Section 4.2 Bengtsson].
Regarding claim 19, the combination of McEwen and Bengtsson, as applied to claim 12, discloses wherein the frequency converter comprises a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) [Section 2.3 Bengtsson].
Regarding claim 20, McEwen discloses a quantum computing system [Abstract], comprising:
a plurality of qubits [page 2 column 2; Abstract]
a quantum logic circuit configured to perform one or more quantum operations on the plurality of qubits [Abstract]
at least one reset circuit [Figure 1; Abstract]
wherein the resonator structure [Figure S1] comprises a superconducting material characterized by a superconducting energy gap [supplementary material page 4 column 1; page 2 column 1]
wherein an energy corresponding to the first frequency is below the superconducting energy gap, and an energy corresponding to the second frequency is above the superconducting energy gap [Table S3; page 2 column 1; page 4 column 1]
McEwen does not explicitly disclose
a resonator structure configured to resonate at a first frequency and a second frequency
a frequency converter configured to convert an excitation of the resonator structure from the first frequency to the second frequency
Bengtsson discloses
a resonator structure configured to resonate at a first frequency and a second frequency [Section 2.3 and Section 2.3.1]
a frequency converter configured to convert an excitation of the resonator structure from the first frequency to the second frequency [Section 2.3 and Section 2.3.1]
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have included first and second frequencies and a frequency converter as taught by Bengtsson in the circuit of McEwen for the purpose of improving the frequency control.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7-11, 13, and 18 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
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/TOMI SKIBINSKI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2836
