DETAILED ACTION
Remarks
This non-final office action is in response to the application filled on 08/30/2023. Claims 1-15 are pending and examined below.
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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a) ‐ (d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. EP 2022/22159812.1, filed on 03/02/2022.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. Fig 2, fig 3, fig 4, fig 7 and fig 8 do not describe the block diagram by text, only marked by number which is not clear to follow. Therefore, the empty blocks on those figures must be describe or the feature(s) canceled from the claim(s). No new matter should be entered.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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.
(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.
Claim(s) 1-5 and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by NPL published by PHYSICAL REVIEW RESEARCH 3,043072(2021), title “Toward simulating quantum field theories with controlled phonon-ion dynamics: A hybrid analog-digital approach”, by (“Davoudi”).
Regarding claim 1, Davoudi discloses a quantum computer for performing quantum operations based on control signals (see at least abstract, where “quantum simulators”, “trapped-ion systems”) for determining a solution of a problem (see at least page 1, Introduction, where “Hamiltonian simulation of physical systems, naturally enabled via mapping the problem to a quantum simulator or a quantum computer”) comprising a first and a second portion in a quantum computational calculation, wherein the first portion includes quantities describing the problem that interact with each other and the second portion includes quantities describing the problem that do not interact with each other (see at least page 6, section B, the mapping to an analog-digital circuit, 1st paragraph, equations 19-29, wherein the Hamiltonian corresponding to the problem includes portions corresponding to interacting and to non-interacting quantities, the phonons being understood as corresponding to interacting quantities and fermions to non-interacting quantities), wherein the quantum computer comprises:
a fermion operation part configured to utilize quantum mechanical states of quantum elements for forming qubits that are manipulable by operations performed on the quantum elements (see at least page 2, left column, last paragraph, "specific pairs of internal states encode qubits, which are manipulated via ion-laser or ion-microwave interactions”; see also page 2, right column, 2nd para, “single-spin (qubit) operations”), wherein the operations are related to the second portion of the problem to be solved during the quantum computational calculation of the problem (see at least page 6-7, section "B. The mapping to an analog-digital circuit", "the degrees of freedom in the simulated theory being mapped to qubit and phonon degrees of freedom of the trapped-ion simulator"; see also mapping above),
a boson operation part configured to couple bosonic fields to the quantum elements (see at least abstract, "interacting boson-fermion models"; "encoding the bosonic fields onto the phonon degrees of freedom of the trapped-ion system"; page 2, left column, last paragraph, "The collective excitations of the motion of ions in the trap, i.e., the phonons, are often used as mediators of the interactions among the qubits"; see also page 2, right column, 2nd paragraph, "spin-phonon, and phonon-phonon operations"), wherein the coupling of the bosonic fields to the quantum elements is manipulable by operations that are related to the first portion of the problem to be solved during the quantum computational calculation of the problem (see at least page 6-7, section "B. The mapping to an analog-digital circuit", "the degrees of freedom in the simulated theory being mapped to qubit and phonon degrees of freedom of the trapped-ion simulator"; see also mapping above),
a manipulation part configured to manipulate a) the fermion operation part such that the states of the quantum elements are manipulated based on control signals (see at least page 2, left column, last paragraph, "specific pairs of internal states encode qubits, which are manipulated via ion-laser or ion-microwave interactions") indicative of operations that are related to the second portion of the problem to be solved during the quantum computational calculation of the problem (see at least page 7, section "B. The mapping to an analog-digital circuit", "the degrees of freedom in the simulated theory being mapped to qubit and phonon degrees of freedom of the trapped-ion simulator"; see also mapping above), and b) the boson operation part such that the coupling of the bosonic fields to the quantum elements is manipulated (see at least abstract, "encoding the bosonic fields onto the phonon degrees of freedom of the trapped-ion system"; page 2, left column, last paragraph, "controlling the phonon dynamics in a trapped-ion simulator") based on control signals indicative of operations that are related to the first portion of the problem to be solved such that a quantum mechanical calculation of the problem is performed (see at least page 7, section "B. The mapping to an analog-digital circuit", "the degrees of freedom in the simulated theory being mapped to qubit and phonon degrees of freedom of the trapped-ion simulator"; see also mapping above), and
a readout part configured to measure, after the manipulation of the quantum elements and the bosonic coupling for performing the quantum mechanical calculation, at least one observable of the a) quantum mechanical state of each quantum element representing the state of a respective qubit and b) bosonic fields, wherein the result of the measurement is indicative of the solution of the problem (see at least page 8, last paragraph, "For simple observables such as fermion and boson occupations, measurements in the original basis obtain the correct expectation values as the corresponding operators commute with the transformation").
Regarding claim 2, Davoudi further discloses a quantum computer wherein the quantum computer comprises a controlling unit configured to provide control signals for controlling the manipulation part to manipulate a) the fermion operation part such that the states of the quantum elements are manipulated based on operations that are related to the second portion of the problem to be solved during the quantum computational calculation of the problem, and b) the boson operation part such that the coupling of the bosonic fields to the quantum elements is manipulated based on operations that are related to the first portion of the problem to be solved such that a quantum mechanical calculation of the problem is performed (see at least page 14, where “controlled operation”).
Regarding claim 3, Davoudi further discloses a quantum computer wherein the bosonic coupling of the bosonic fields to the quantum elements is configured to be adaptable to represent a specific coupling of the first portion during the quantum computational calculation of the quantum mechanical problem, and wherein the manipulation part is further configured to adapt the coupling (see at least page 13, where “corresponding to the necessary modification to the interaction-picture Hamiltonian”).
Regarding claim 4, Davoudi further discloses a quantum computer wherein the boson operation part is configured to couple at least one bosonic field to each quantum element forming a qubit (see at least page 2).
Regarding claim 5, Davoudi further discloses a quantum computer wherein the quantum computer refers to a) a superconducting quantum computer in which the quantum elements are realized as superconducting circuits and the coupling of the bosonic fields to the quantum elements is realized by providing electromagnetic resonators coupled to the superconducting circuits (see at least page 1, where “superconducting circuits in cavity QED”; see also page 16), or
b) an ion trap quantum computer, wherein the quantum elements are realized as ions trapped in an ion trap and the coupling of the bosonic fields to the quantum elements is realized as a coupling of vibrational modes of the trapped ions to electronic states of the trapped ions forming the qubits (see at least abstract), or
c) any one type of quantum computer, wherein the bosonic coupling is realized by performing additional coupling operations on the quantum elements forming qubits.
Regarding claim 15, Davoudi further discloses a method for solving problems referring to electronic- structure problems comprising using the quantum computer according to claim 1, see citation on claim 5 above.
Claim(s) 6, 7, 10 and 12-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as anticipated by or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over NPL published by PHYSICAL REVIEW RESEARCH 3,043072(2021), title “Toward simulating quantum field theories with controlled phonon-ion dynamics: A hybrid analog-digital approach”, by (“Davoudi”).
Regarding claim 6 (and similarly claim 12, 13 and 14), most of the features of claim 6 have been already discussed when discussing claim 1, a quantum computing necessarily having a controller controlling its operations. Davoudi further discloses translating/transforming a problem into a sequence of operations (see at least Davoudi, fig. 3 as an example) and automating such a translation by an apparatus would be a mere implementation choice for a skilled person when implement commonly known in the art quantum algorithm implementation techniques (in particular adapting an input problem/program to a configuration of a hardware system).
Regarding claim 7, Davoudi further discloses an apparatus wherein the problem providing unit is adapted to provide a problem description indicative of a problem comprising a portion with interacting quantities describing the problem, wherein the apparatus comprises further a transformation unit adapted to transform the interacting portion of the problem description into a problem description comprising a first and a second portion (see at least fig 3 and citation of claim 6).
Regarding claim 10, Davoudi further discloses an apparatus wherein the problem description refers to a quantum mechanical description and wherein the translation unit is adapted to transform the quantum mechanical description of the problem into a rotating frame, in particular, by applying a rotating wave approximation, before the translation into the representative operation description (see at least page 12, 1st para, where “rotating frame”).
Claim(s) 8 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over NPL published by PHYSICAL REVIEW RESEARCH 3,043072(2021), title “Toward simulating quantum field theories with controlled phonon-ion dynamics: A hybrid analog-digital approach”, by (“Davoudi”), as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of “Revealing Fermionic Quantum Criticality from New Monte Carlo Techniques”, by (“Xiao”).
Regarding claim 8, Davoudi does not disclose claim 8. However, Xiao discloses an apparatus wherein the problem description is representable by a quantum mechanical description comprising fermion-fermion interactions and wherein the transformation unit is adapted to transform the problem description into a problem description representable by a quantum mechanical description comprising boson-fermion interactions as first portion of the problem and non-interacting fermions as second portion of the problem (see at least page 2, where “the most efficient way is to use an effective model where directly fermion-fermion inter actions are replaced by certain boson-mediated interactions.”; see also page 4, where “random phase approximation”; equation 1).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Davoudi to incorporate the teachings of Xiao by including the above feature for achieving quantum advantage through simpler hardware setups.
Regarding claim 9, Xiao further discloses an apparatus wherein the problem description comprises at least portions that are representable by a quantum mechanical description comprising a static fermion-fermion interaction as third portion of the problem and wherein the transformation unit is adapted to approximate these portions of the problem by utilizing a constrained random phase approximation (see at least page 2, where “the most efficient way is to use an effective model where directly fermion-fermion inter actions are replaced by certain boson-mediated interactions.”; see also page 4, where “random phase approximation”; equation 1).
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over NPL published by PHYSICAL REVIEW RESEARCH 3,043072(2021), title “Toward simulating quantum field theories with controlled phonon-ion dynamics: A hybrid analog-digital approach”, by (“Davoudi”), as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of “Quantum Monte Carlo determinantal algorithm without Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation: a general consideration”, by (“Rubtsov”).
Regarding claim 11, Davoudi does not disclose claim 11. However, Rubtsov discloses an apparatus wherein the problem description comprises at least portions that are representable by a quantum mechanical description comprising an interacting cluster with static local fermion interactions embedded in static non-local long-range interactions, which reach outside the cluster, as third portion of the problem and wherein the transformation unit is adapted to approximate these non-local long-range portions of the problem by utilizing a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation (see at least abstract).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Davoudi to incorporate the teachings of Rubtsov by including the above feature for breaking down complex multi-qubit interactions into simpler, low-error single-qubit operations.
Conclusion
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/SOHANA TANJU KHAYER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3657
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