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 .
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 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.
Disposition of the Claims
Claims 1-6, 8-20 are pending. Claims 1-6, 8-13 stand amended. Claims 14-20 are newly presented.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Gimeno-Segovia (US 20240303521 A1, effectively filed 1/22/2021).
In re 1 and 5, Gimeno-Segovia discloses a measurement device (Figs. 3A, 3B, 26A, 28, 29) for performing projective measurements onto higher-dimensional quantum states (¶81, projective measurements i.e. fusion operations, into + and – eigenstates) which are defined by a computational basis {|m>|mE{0, 1, ..., d-1}} of d-dimensional quantum states made up of states of orthogonal light (a variety of orthogonal light physical qubit encodings are contemplated, including time-bin ¶120, dual rail ¶104 and ¶120-121, polarization ¶58, path encoding ¶59; it is noted that qubit basis states are orthogonal by definition; further non-photon qubit bases are discussed in ¶78), and mutually unbiased bases of label r (integer of 0 or more) that are non-orthogonal to the computational basis and define a quantum state of label n (0, 1, ..., d-1), wherein d=2^N (N is a natural number of 2 or more) (qubits inherently affording 2^N dimensionality, see ¶85; the entangled resource states 315 are then projectively measured by fusion system 305 to generate measurement outcomes 322; see ¶330, “Networks of mode couplers and phase shifters can be used to implement couplings among more than two modes. For example, FIG. 28 shows a four-mode coupling scheme that implements a “spreader,” or “mode-information erasure,” transformation on four modes, i.e., it takes a photon in any one of the input modes and delocalizes the photon amongst each of the four output modes such that the photon has equal probability of being detected in any one of the four output modes. (The well-known Hadamard transformation is one example of a spreader transformation.)”), the quantum state of the label n is expressed by the following equation (considered to be disclosed by superposition of the qubits into the high dimensional resource states)
[eqn. 1]
wherein a probability amplitude Bmn^r is decomposed into a diagonal unitary matrix and a Hadamard transform matrix (¶330, Hadamard transformation being employed to achieve the mutually unbiased bases i.e. equal probability of output modes), the measurement device comprises:
a phase modulation unit which corresponds to the diagonal unitary matrix, and applies a phase modulation to each of the state of the computational basis of a received d- dimensional quantum state (¶319, “In some embodiments, operations of this kind can be implemented by using beam splitters to couple modes together and variable phase shifters to apply phase shifts to one or more modes”, and ¶330, the phase shifters and mode couplers being employed to realize the Hadamard transformation); and
a measurement unit which corresponds to the Hadamard transform matrix and determines the label n of the d-dimensional quantum state (¶145-146, Hadamard labeling of multiqubit encoding).
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.
The factual inquiries 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 2 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gimeno-Segovia.
Regarding claim 2, the qubit entangling and projective measurements thereof being disclosed above, including + and – eigenstates as discussed above, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that the mathematics of the instant claim would be satisfied thereby with high probability.
Regarding claim 9, Gimeno-Segocia discloses a generation device of a high-dimensional quantum state ) which is defined by a computational basis {|m>|mE{0, 1, ..., d-1}} of d-dimensional quantum states made up of states of orthogonal light (a variety of orthogonal light physical qubit encodings are contemplated, including time-bin ¶120, dual rail ¶104 and ¶120-121, polarization ¶58, path encoding ¶59; it is noted that qubit basis states are orthogonal by definition; further non-photon qubit bases are discussed in ¶78), and mutually unbiased bases of label r (integer of 0 or more) that are non-orthogonal to the computational basis and define a quantum state of label n (0, 1, ..., d-1), wherein d=2^N (N is a natural number of 2 or more) (qubits inherently affording 2^N dimensionality, see ¶85; the entangled resource states 315 are then projectively measured by fusion system 305 to generate measurement outcomes 322; see ¶330, “Networks of mode couplers and phase shifters can be used to implement couplings among more than two modes. For example, FIG. 28 shows a four-mode coupling scheme that implements a “spreader,” or “mode-information erasure,” transformation on four modes, i.e., it takes a photon in any one of the input modes and delocalizes the photon amongst each of the four output modes such that the photon has equal probability of being detected in any one of the four output modes. (The well-known Hadamard transformation is one example of a spreader transformation.)”), and the quantum state of the label n is represented by the following equation (considered disclosed by superposition of the qubits into the high dimensional resource states)
[eqn. 1],
and takes only four phase states (¶319, “In some embodiments, operations of this kind can be implemented by using beam splitters to couple modes together and variable phase shifters to apply phase shifts to one or more modes”, and ¶330, the phase shifters and mode couplers being employed to realize the Hadamard transformation to four modes viz. four phase states);
Gimeno-Segovia does not explicitly show wherein an element serving as a basis of a finite field of an order d is defined as fi, and a symmetry matrix AO) satisfies the following equation
[eqn. 2] and the probability amplitude is expressed by
[eqn. 3]
However, the qubit entangling and projective measurements thereof being disclosed above, including + and – eigenstates as discussed above, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that the mathematics of the instant claim would be satisfied thereby with high probability.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 4, 10, and 14-20 allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Regarding claim 3, which recites similar limitations to that of claim 1 as discussed above, Gimeno-Segovia does not explicitly show that the quantum state label dimensionality is p^N wherein p is an odd prime. In other words, Gimeno-Segovia does not disclose the claimed operations for qudits.
Regarding claim 10, which recites similar limitations to that of claim 9 as discussed above, Gimeno-Segovia does not explicitly show that the quantum state label dimensionality is p^N wherein p is an odd prime. In other words, Gimeno-Segovia does not disclose the claimed operations for qudits.
The dependent claims depend from an allowable claim and are therefore allowable.
Claims 6, 8, and 11-13 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.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art considered pertinent to the instant application but not relied upon:
US 20120155870 A1 discloses selectively routing entanglement building between qubits toward quantum networks
US 9354039 B2 discloses interferometer trees for programmable quantum processing
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/COLLIN X BEATTY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2872
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