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 .
The following is a Non-Final Office Action in response to communications received on March 18, 2025. Claims 1-12 are pending and addressed below.
Specification
For the record, Examiner acknowledges that the Specification submitted on March 18, 2025 has been accepted.
Drawings
For the record, Examiner acknowledges that the Drawings submitted on March 18, 2025 have been accepted.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation “the result.” There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation. Dependent claims 2-7 are rejected for containing the same indefinite language as parent claim 1 without further remedying the indefinite language.
Claim 8 recites the limitation “Alice” in the preamble. It is unclear what the metes and bounds of this limitation are. Dependent claims 9-11 are rejected for containing the same indefinite language as parent claim 8 without further remedying the indefinite language.
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 8-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter. Claim 8 is directed towards an “Alice” comprising several elements. An “Alice” is not an allowed statutory category of invention. Therefore, claim 8 is considered to be directed towards nonstatutory subject matter. Dependent claims 9-11 are rejected for containing the same nonstatutory subject matter as parent claim 8 without remedying the nonstatutory subject matter. This rejection may be overcome by amending the preamble to include a statutory category of invention (e.g. “An apparatus, comprising”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 12 is allowed.
Claims 1-11 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) set forth in this Office action.
Claim 1 recites, inter alia, “transforming a three-qubit state from among the second qubit, a third qubit, and the qubit included in Bob into a first Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state; performing a Bell state measurement between the first qubit and the second qubit; transforming, based on the result of performing the Bell state measurement, a three- qubit state from among the third qubit, the qubit included in the Alice, and the qubit included in the Bob into a second GHZ state”.
Claim 8 recites, inter alia, “receiving 1-bit classical information from the Charlie; determining whether to perform a bit flip operation in the first qubit based on the 1- bit classical information;... receiving qubit information forming a 2-qubit entanglement state with the qubit included in the Bob in the first qubit based on entanglement teleportation using the GHZ state; and performing a local controlled not (CNOT) operation having the first qubit as a control qubit and a second qubit as a target qubit”.
Claim 12 recites, inter alia, “restoring states of the first qubit and the third qubit included in the Bob to a preset bell state based on the result of performing the Bell state measurement; receiving qubit information from the Charlie in a fifth qubit based on quantum teleportation; performing a local controlled not (CNOT) operation having the fifth qubit as a control qubit and a sixth qubit as a target qubit; and performing a non-local CNOT operation having the fifth qubit as a control qubit and a seventh qubit included in the Bob as a target qubit based on Bell state resource formed in the first qubit and the second qubit”.
The closest prior art made of record are:
Cai et al. (“Partially entangled states bridge in quantum teleportation”) which discloses Bob and Candy share a partially entangled pair (section 2 pg. 647)
Eisert et al. (“Optimal local implementation of nonlocal quantum gates”) which discloses nonlocal CNOT operations (section II)
Niu et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2021/0390442) which discloses a non-local CNOT gate (paragraphs [0069]-[0072])
Parker (U.S. Pub. No. 2023/0409952) which discloses determining whether one or more pairs of qubits are quantum-entangled (Abstract)
The prior art was not found to disclose the cited limitations in combination with the other limitations. Therefore, claims 1, 8 and 12 are considered to recite allowable subject matter over the prior art. Dependent claims 2-7 and 9-11 are considered to recite allowable subject matter over the prior art based on their dependency.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THADDEUS J PLECHA whose telephone number is (571)270-7506. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-4:30.
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/THADDEUS J PLECHA/Examiner, Art Unit 2438
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