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 .
The instant office action having application number 18/683096, filed on February 12, 2024, has claims 1-20 pending in this application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03/05/2024 and May 2, 2025. 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 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception without reciting significantly more.
Under Step 2A, Prong One, claim 1 is directed to the abstract idea of mathematical optimization using an Ising model by modifying candidate states to avoid convergence to local minima. The claim recites achieving an optimization result rather than a specific technological improvement.Under Step 2A, Prong Two, the additional elements (pump pulse generator, optical error correction circuit, and main ring cavity) are recited at a high level of generality and merely provide an environment for performing the optimization. The claim does not recite a specific improvement to optical hardware or another technology.Under Step 2B, the recited hardware performs its ordinary and expected functions and does not provide an inventive concept sufficient to transform the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter.
Claim 11 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 1.
Dependent claim(s) 2-10 and 12-20 when analyzed as a whole are held to be patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the additional recited limitation(s) fail(s) to establish that the claim(s) is/are not directed to an abstract idea, as detailed above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 USC 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Aonishi et al. (US 20240133987 A1) (hereinafter Aonishi).
As per claims 1 and 11, Aonishi discloses a pump pulse generator configured to generate optical signal pulses [as shown in FIG. 1B, the CIM 102 of the system 100 has pump pulses that are injected into an optical parametric oscillator , paragraph 32]; an optical error correction circuit configured to generate optical error pulses [A part of each pulse is picked off from the main cavity by the output coupler, and it is measured by optical homodyne detectors, paragraph 32]; and a main ring cavity configured to store the optical signal pulses and the optical error pulses [FIG. 1B, the pump pulses are injected into the main ring cavity through a second harmonic generation (SHG) crystal, paragraph 37], wherein the optical error pulses cause the coherent Ising machine not to converge on a local minima of Ising solution and continue to explore nearby states [two macroscopic states with non-zero RMSE (red solid lines) and near-zero RMSE (green solid lines) coexist as in a CIM-implemented CDMA multiuser detector., paragraph 45].
As per claims 2 and 12, Aonishi discloses a phase sensitive amplifier configured to squeeze the optical signal pulses such that the main ring cavity stores the optical signal pulses as squeezed optical signal pulses [A periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide device induces a phase-sensitive degenerate optical parametric amplification of the signal pulses, paragraph 32].
As per claims 3 and 13, Aonishi discloses a phase sensitive amplified configured to squeeze the optical error pulses such that the main ring cavity stores the optical error pulses as squeezed optical error pulses [If the round-trip time of the ring cavity correctly adjusted to N times the pump pulse interval, N independent and identical OPO pulses can be simultaneously generated inside the cavity, paragraph 37].
As per claims 4 and 14, Aonishi discloses wherein squared amplitude of the optical error pulses is smaller compared to a saturation level of an optical parametric oscillator of the main ring cavity [FIGS. 2a and 2b compares solutions of the method for L0 regularization-based compressed sensing and show the root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) of the solutions to the macroscopic equation, paragraph 44].
As per claims 5 and 15, Aonishi discloses wherein the optical signal pulses are configured to be manipulated in both a linear amplifier/deamplifier regime and a non-linear oscillator regime [A periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide device induces a phase-sensitive degenerate optical parametric amplification of the signal pulses, and each of the OPO pulses take either the 0-phase state, paragraph 32].
As per claims 6 and 16, Aonishi discloses wherein the optical error pulses are configured to be manipulated in a linear amplifier/deamplifier regime [A periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide device induces a phase-sensitive degenerate optical parametric amplification of the signal pulses, and each of the OPO pulses take either the 0-phase state, paragraph 32].
As per claims 7 and 17, Aonishi discloses wherein the pump pulse generator, the main ring cavity, and the optical error correction circuit are integrated monolithically into a single chip [Under these conditions, as was lowered to 0.01, RMSE decreased monotonically and the phase transition point ac from the near-zero-RMSE state grew monotonically, paragraph 45].
As per claims 8 and 18, Aonishi discloses wherein the pump pulse generator is configured to generate the optical signal pulses as second harmonic generation pulses [FIG. 1B, the CIM 102 of the system 100 has pump pulses that are injected into an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) formed in a fiber ring cavity through second harmonic generation (SHG) crystal, paragraph 32].
As per claims 9 and 19, Aonishi discloses wherein the optical error correction circuit comprises an optical homodyne detector configured measure amplitudes of the optical signal pulses and the optical error pulses [A part of each pulse is picked off from the main cavity by the output coupler, and it is measured by optical homodyne detectors., paragraph 32].
As per claims 10 and 20, Aonishi discloses wherein the optical error correction circuit comprises a fan-out and a fan-in circuit configured to generate the optical error pulses with a predetermined amplitude [In Algorithm 1 shown in FIGS. 9A,9B and 10, the c-amplitude is always initialized as c=0 in the initial stage of the support estimation even when r is initialized to the true signal value, paragraph 68].
Conclusion
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June 26, 2026
/NOOSHA ARJOMANDI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2166
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