Ex Parte AshikhminDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 30, 201713912876 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 30, 2017) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O.Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 13/912,876 06/07/2013 Alexei Ashikhmin 813437-US-NP 2060 22046 7590 Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc 600-700 Mountain Avenue Docket Administrator - Room 3B-212F Murray Hill, NJ 07974 EXAMINER TORRES, JOSEPH D ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2112 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/04/2017 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): narpatent @ nokia. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ALEXEI ASHIKHMIN Appeal 2017-006572 Application 13/912,8761 Technology Center 2100 Before JOHN A. EVANS, LARRY J. HUME, and JOHN D. HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judges. HUME, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Final Rejection of claims 9—13. Appellant has withdrawn claims 1—8 and 14—18 from consideration in response to a Restriction Requirement {see Final Act. 2), and thus are not before us on Appeal. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2017-006572 Application 13/912,876 STATEMENT OF THE CASE2 The Invention Appellant's disclosed embodiments and claimed invention "relate to measuring syndromes of quantum redundancy coded states, which may have undergone physical degradation." Spec. 1,11. 11—12 ("Technical Field"). Exemplary Claim Claim 9, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal: 9. An apparatus, comprising: an input register connected to receive and store a physical state of n qubits; a plurality of auxiliary registers, each auxiliary register of the plurality being configured to transmit a preset state of one or more qubits; a quantum circuit being constructed to transform the preset states based on the physical state received from the input register and to output the physical state to an output register; and a plurality of detectors, each detector of the plurality being connected to receive a corresponding one of the transformed preset states from the quantum circuit and being configured to produce a value by measuring one or more qubits of the corresponding received one of the transformed preset states; and wherein the quantum circuit is configured to form the transformed preset states such that the produced values measure bits of the syndrome of the physical state and such that at least 2 Our Decision relies upon Appellant's Appeal Brief ("App. Br.," filed Feb. 22, 2016); Reply Brief ("Reply Br.," filed Aug. 18, 2016); Examiner's Answer ("Ans.," mailed June 15, 2016); Final Office Action ("Final Act.," mailed May 22, 2015); and the original Specification ("Spec.," filed June 7, 2013). 2 Appeal 2017-006572 Application 13/912,876 one of the produced values measures a parity check bit for the measured bits of the syndrome. Rejection on Appeal Claims 9—13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. Final Act. 4; see also Ans. 2. ISSUE Appellant argues (App. Br. 3—13; Reply Br. 1—10) the Examiner's rejection of claims 9—13 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to patent- ineligible subject matter is in error. These contentions present us with the following issue: Did the Examiner err in concluding claims 9-13, as a whole, lack utility and do not amount to significantly more than an abstract idea, namely, the abstract idea of generating abstract mathematical quantities called syndromes, and did the Examiner further err in concluding any additional elements recited in the claims amount to no more than a computational unit for generation of the abstract mathematical quantities called syndromes? ANALYSIS Based upon our review of the record, we find a preponderance of the evidence supports particular arguments advanced by Appellant with respect to claims 9—13 for the specific reasons discussed below. We highlight and address specific findings and arguments regarding claim 1 for emphasis as follows. The Examiner rejects claims 9—13 under § 101 because they "are directed to the abstract idea of generating abstract mathematical quantities 3 Appeal 2017-006572 Application 13/912,876 called syndromes. The additional element(s) or combination of elements in the claim(s) other than the abstract idea per se amount(s) to no more than: a computational unit for generation of abstract mathematical quantities called syndromes .... Furthermore no machine for physical processing with a utility is identified since no machine for physical processing is identified." Final Act. 4. We disagree with the Examiner's conclusions. For example, we disagree with the Examiner because, on its face, independent claim 9 recites one of the statutory classes of inventions, i.e., a machine (or apparatus) recited in such a way as to provide utility in the field of quantum processing by using various registers, circuits, and detectors. Quantum processing using quantum bits or "qubits" and measuring physical states and syndromes associated therewith, may be esoteric technology, but this does not make the claimed invention abstract or lacking in utility, particularly when we view the claim as a whole. Accordingly, based upon the findings above, on this record, we are persuaded of error in the Examiner's conclusion that claims 9—13 are directed to non-statutory subject matter under § 101. Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 9—13. CONCLUSION The Examiner erred with respect to the non-statutory subject matter rejection of claims 9-13 under 35U.S.C. § 101, and we do not sustain the rejection. 4 Appeal 2017-006572 Application 13/912,876 DECISION We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 9—13. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation