Intellectual property in nano computer technologies.
1. Introduction.
For nearly 20 years, as a lawyer working in the field of intellectual property, I have been observing the development of computer programs in various fields, while at the same time naturally following the global leap in computer hardware, since it logically corresponds, as a technological level, to the development of the specific stage of programming - these activities go hand in hand, so to speak.
Over the past 10 years, my attention has turned to the so-called "quantum computers" and their predecessors - "supercomputers", the intersection between them being that they can be generally defined as powerful machines used to perform complex calculations, solve problems and analyze data. It is important to note here that there are significant differences between these technologies in terms of software and hardware.
Supercomputers use a traditional, familiar computing approach with multiple processors to rapidly process large amounts of data and produce a single result. These computers are the fastest in terms of raw computing power, but they can only handle one task at a time and their processing capabilities are limited by Moore's Law [1] .
The difference between the aforementioned “supercomputers” [2] and quantum computers (also called nanocomputers – the terms are similar) is that the latter use the principles of quantum mechanics to process information in a way that traditional computers cannot achieve, resulting in much higher processing speeds. They are capable of handling multiple tasks simultaneously and can easily solve complex problems that would take months for a supercomputer. However, quantum computers require more precise technological support than their traditional counterparts, as they are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature and must remain isolated from external influences, climate, etc.
As early as 1959, the future (then) Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, as a true visionary, first spoke abstractly about the “many rooms at the bottom” [3] , which concern miniaturized nanometric scales. Later, in his work “Drexler” (from the English “Drexler”1 and 2), Feynman gave a futuristic idea of nanotechnology, which became the basis for the scientific research of many chemists, biologists and engineers, who we can collectively call “nanotechnologists”.
My current article is inspired by the fact that in September 2022, a team at the American company Google created a computer nanochip that, in just five minutes, performs tasks that would take 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years for some of the fastest conventional computers in the world. That’s 10 septillion years – a number that far exceeds the age of the known universe and has led the scientists behind the latest quantum computing breakthrough to resort to a completely non-technical term, describing the achievement as technically and scientifically “mind-blowing”. This new chip, called “Willow”, was made in the Californian city of Santa Barbara and measures 4 by 4 centimeters, and combined with artificial intelligence could speed up the creation of new drugs by significantly speeding up the experimental phase of development [4] .
IBM, of course, was not far behind. In the past few years, the company has made significant progress in the design and manufacturing of semiconductors, with the announcement of the world's first chip using 7 nanometer (technically written as 7nm) nanosheets [5] . Another research team, led by Professor Volker Sorger of George Washington University in the US, has demonstrated a new nano-photonic equivalent processor that is capable of solving partial differential equations [6] .
The technology of so-called “ quantum dots ” (a type of semiconductor nanocrystal) [7] has also emerged , which emit only one wavelength of light. This is a new material synthesized through the process of “bottom-up” nanofabrication. They have the potential to revolutionize computer science and quantum informatics by enabling the structuring of scalable, cost-effective and fault-tolerant working machines. Quantum dot technology has some promising applications in this field. In the coming years, quantum dots could be used as quantum bits and form the basis of quantum computers, in which the twice the speed of traditional computers is reproduced by quantum bits, or qubits, which can be in any state - between 0 and 1, and both 0 and 1 at the same time. Due to the ability of a quantum computer to analyze several circumstances simultaneously, it is believed that it has the ability to perform a million calculations in a single operation, which significantly increases its speed. Here I would like to point out that the development of quantum computers is still in its infancy, and since they rely on quantum mechanical phenomena, they are logically exposed to risk, facing a number of – let's call them trivial problems such as noise, loss of coherence and loss of quantum bits. This article aims to examine all this interesting issue from the perspective of intellectual property.
2. Copyright aspects of nanotechnology in the USA.
In 2003, the US government established the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The NNI is a US government research and development initiative. More than thirty federal departments, independent agencies, and commissions work together to achieve a shared vision of a future in which the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale leads to continuous revolutions in technology and industry for the benefit of society. The NNI improves interagency coordination of nanotechnology research and development, supports common infrastructure, enables the use of resources while avoiding duplication , and establishes common goals, priorities, and strategies that complement the missions and activities of individual agencies [8] .
In this innovative environment, scientific teams such as IBM and Google are starting to develop their nanocomputer innovations, directly supported by the US government. Very often, these companies also cooperate with countries outside the US - for example, I recall that in 2009, a cooperation agreement was signed between IBM and the Bulgarian government on ways to encourage industry, universities and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences to work together in the field of nanosciences, and in a separate commercial agreement, IBM consultants were to help the Bulgarian government establish a research center in the field of nanotechnology, which would use the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer, owned by the Bulgarian State Agency for Information Technologies and Communications. The fate of this supercomputer and whether it is currently being used to develop nanotechnology is unclear, as there has been no public information on the subject since 2010 [9] , despite the investment of tens of millions in it.
According to American (and, of course, international) copyright doctrine, legal framework, and case law, copyright in computer programs [10] is intended to stimulate and enhance creativity, cultural diversity, technological progress, and freedom of expression. An important goal of the American copyright system governing computer programs, such as quantum chips, is to stimulate the creation and dissemination of diverse forms of scientific progress by allowing future generations of authors to freely use the works of their successors. Under TRIPS and the WTO, including the Berne Convention, the creative aspects of the source code and firmware of quantum software can be protected by copyright, as a literary work. In this case, what is protected is the expression of the computer software, its symbolic analogue in letters and numbers, and not its functionality. Before the expression of quantum computer code is stored in a physical medium, it can be stored as time-stamped (i.e., date-stamped) content in the i-Depot platform, WIPO Proof (a tool for registering any copyright with a WIPO digital token), or in the US Copyright office (this is the US Copyright Office, administered by the Library of Congress). The office allows uploading up to 50 pages of source code. The program code for computer programs related to quantum processors can be protected in the US and contractually, through confidentiality agreements (NDA). Quantum software, the so-called API (application programming interface), quantum arithmetic units (quantum addition, subtraction, multiplication, and exponentiation), runtime assertion and configuration operations, quantum computing platforms, programming paradigms and languages, Bacon-Shore stabilization code, color codes, and surface codes - all of these components fall within the scope of US copyrightable subject matter. It is recommended that portions of code written in application programming languages, such as eDSL and Python, be open source rather than copyrighted or licensed for use under the Creative Commons open source license agreement [11] , since, as with classical computing, both commercial and open source operating systems are expected to emerge in the markets. Several uncrystallized areas in quantum software require special attention and perhaps some pioneering in the field of law - for example, the functionality of such programs, as it turned out, is not protected by copyright. This raises the reasonable question of whether the functionality of the software can also be protected by patents, and the answer is - yes, if the software leads to a specific technical result, which is the case with quantum chips in 99.9% of cases.
3. Patent protection of nano chips and nano computers.
An interesting fact is that one of the first (in general) patents for quantum computers was European [12] and was filed by Hitachi Europe Ltd., with its inventors being Paul Cain, Andrew Ferguson, and David Williams. The invention is a quantum computer that consists of a pair of qubits located between first and second single-electron electrometers and a control gate. Each of the qubits consists of an ammonia molecule enclosed in a C60 molecule located on a substrate. The C60 molecule containing ammonia is positioned using a scanning probe microscope. Apparently, this is a quantum computer microscope used for scientific experiments.
Returning to the current achievements in the field of quantum chips, we should say that in 2022 Hartmut Neven - founder and head of the quantum artificial intelligence department at Google, said that he was pleased to present the US-patented computing invention "Willow" - Google's latest quantum chip. "Willow" is distinguished by state-of-the-art performance in a number of indicators, which enables two important achievements.
The first is that Willow can reduce errors exponentially as it uses more qubits. This is a key challenge in the field of quantum error correction that has been pursued for almost 30 years. The second achievement is that Willow performs a standard comparative calculation in less than five minutes, which would take one of the fastest modern supercomputers 10 septillion years - a number that significantly exceeds the age of the universe.
The Willow chip is an important step on a path that began more than 10 years ago when Neven founded Google Quantum AI in 2012. The vision back then was to create a useful, large-scale quantum computer that could use quantum mechanics—the “operating system” of nature as we know it today—to benefit society by rapidly advancing scientific discoveries, developing useful applications, and tackling some of society’s biggest challenges—for example, developing generic cancer drugs. As part of Google Research, their team has mapped out a long-term roadmap, and Willow takes us significantly further along that path toward new commercial and meaningful applications for our health, science, industry, and more.
I would like to briefly and very concisely address the fact that given the rapid growth of the discussed quantum computer inventions, innovators must keep in mind several important legal requirements regarding their patentability:
First and foremost is the requirement of technical applicability . To be patentable, a quantum computing invention must demonstrate a tangible technical effect, such as improving a physical process or system, performing a technological function. Abstract ideas or purely mathematical methods are not enough, and if they alone are the subject of the patent proposal, it will be refused by the examination.
Detailed and thorough description . A patent application filed for a quantum software/hardware invention must contain sufficient detail to demonstrate that the invention can be implemented using current quantum hardware. This includes an explanation of how qubits, quantum gates, and error correction are implemented in practice.
Clear and precise terminology . The quantum computing terminology used in the claims must be precise and clearly defined, as ambiguity can lead to rejection of the patent on the grounds of unpatentability arising from a conflict with the prior art. Inventors should ensure that the description is understandable to patent experts and distinguishes the invention from the prior art.
Inventive step : The patent application must show how quantum technology solves a technical problem in a new and non-obvious way compared to existing solutions, both with classical supercomputers, chips, semiconductors, transistors, etc., and with quantum ones.
In conclusion, I would like to say that modern quantum chips (and not only) represent an innovative leap towards practical quantum computing with transformative potential in the fields of artificial intelligence, drug discovery, nuclear fusion and cryptography. Although their commercial use is still years away, the impact of quantum computers in the future is more than predictable, and the companies that invest in them protect their innovations with detailed copyright and patent portfolios. In this context, the challenges facing the inventors of these technologies are still to come, and they will have to focus their efforts on serious and detailed development work, based on expert technological testing, as well as on demonstrating technical effects, providing detailed analyses (including through artificial intelligence), using accurate terminology and demonstrating a qualitatively high level of novelty in order to impose a given innovation on the increasingly competitive quantum computer market. I hope our computer scientists will get back into this game, as it is clearly not just about words, but about real, long-term achievements, focus, perseverance in analysis and development, and serious investments backed by huge companies and/or entire governments.
Author: Mr. Atanas Kostov - intellectual property attorney
[1] It is related to the principle that the speed of computer processors doubles every two years;
[2] Bulgaria also has one – it is called “Hemus” and is located at the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies (IICT) at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The Bulgarian supercomputer has nearly 100,000 cores and a performance of over 3 PetaFlops (with a speed of over 3 x 10 15 floating-point operations per second). The “Hemus” supercomputer enables large-scale scientific research in areas such as artificial intelligence, climatology, bioinformatics, drug design, large-scale simulations of high-tech materials and processes, modeling of dynamic processes in industry and high-performance analysis of big data. It provides an option for storing and processing nearly 6.72 PetaBytes of data in accordance with the FAIR principles, i.e. data that meets the principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse.
[3] The transcript of the classic lecture delivered by Richard Feynman on December 29, 1959, at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), was first published in Caltech Engineering and Science, Vol. 23:5, February 1960, pp. 22-36. With their kind permission, it is available on the Internet at: http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html
[4] Quantum computers, which exploit the discovery that matter can exist in multiple states at once, are expected to have the power to perform far greater calculations than ever before, speeding up the development of nuclear fusion reactors and accelerating the impact of artificial intelligence, particularly in medicine. For example, this could allow MRI scans to be interpreted in atomic-level detail, unlocking new repositories of data about the human body and disease that artificial intelligence could process, Google said;
[5] See the article on the topic "Nanosheet field effect transistors-A next generation device to keep Moore's law alive" here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002626922100152X?via%3Dihub;
[6] The article on this scientific work can be found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-021-00683-4;
[7] Quantum dots (QDs) are semiconductor nanocrystals that possess extraordinary properties not found in their bulk counterparts. They have attracted the attention of academia and industry due to their quantum confinement effect and unique photophysical properties. Computational approaches, such as first-principles simulations and classical molecular dynamics, are indispensable tools in both scientific research and industrial applications of QDs. You can read more about this topic in the article “Overview of Computational Simulations in Quantum Dots” here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijch.201900026
[8] The organization's website can be found here: https://www.nano.gov/nset
[9] "Blue Gene" began operation on September 9, 2008. The price of the 40th most powerful computer in the world (at that time), based in Bulgaria, was 5.4 million leva, and the government also created the state-owned company "Bulgarian Technology Center" with a capital of 50 million;
[10] In Section 101 of the US Copyright Act, the term “computer program” is defined as a combination of statements of intent or instructions that are used directly or indirectly in the operation of a computer or to produce a specific result;
[11] See on the topic Kostov, A – “Copyright and Open Source Systems” here: https://iusauthor.com/publikacii/95-avtorskoto-pravo-i-open-sorce-sistemite.html