Quantum Computing Firm D-Wave Systems Announces Milestone of 100 U.S. Patents Granted

BURNABY, British Columbia and PALO ALTO, Calif., June 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- D-Wave Systems Inc., the world's first commercial quantum computing company, today announced it has been granted its 100^th patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This is an important milestone for the company, whose patent portfolio was also rated #4 in the Computer Systems category by IEEE Spectrum this past December, just behind computing giants IBM, HP and Fujitsu.

In order to build the world's first commercial quantum computer, D-Wave needed to significantly advance the state-of-the-art in a diverse set of domains in physics, system architecture, manufacturing and computer science. This ranged from the science of quantum computing to the development, fabrication and manufacturing of all elements of the system from the superconducting qubits to the quantum processor to the magnetic shielding and cooling and the software and algorithms.

In December of 2012, IEEE Spectrum announced their sixth Patent Power scorecard. According to IEEE Spectrum, "The scorecards are based on objective, quantitative benchmarking of the patent portfolios of more than 5000 leading commercial enterprises, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. This benchmarking—carried out by us at 1790 Analytics, based in Haddonfield, N.J.—takes into account not only the size of organizations' patent portfolios but also the quality, as reflected in characteristics such as growth, impact, originality, and general applicability."

"Both the 100 patent milestone and the recognition by IEEE Spectrum for our patent quality is a reflection of the number of breakthroughs the company has made in order to actually develop, manufacture, sell and install the first commercial quantum computers," said Vern Brownell, D-Wave CEO. "The fact that D-Wave's patent portfolio is rated # 4 in a list that includes industry leaders like IBM, HP, Fujitsu, NEC, Dell, Cray and SGI is a testament to the hard work, dedication and passion of the D-Wave team. Furthermore, many of the breakthroughs these patents represent have been documented in more than 60 peer-reviewed scientific publications. I congratulate everyone at D-Wave for these achievements and for the commercial success that has resulted."

About D-Wave Systems Inc. Founded in 1999, D-Wave's mission is to integrate new discoveries in physics and computer science into breakthrough approaches to computation. The company's flagship product, the 512-qubit D-Wave Two™ computer, is built around a novel type of superconducting processor that uses quantum mechanics to massively accelerate computation. Recently D-Wave announced the installation of a D-Wave Two system at the new Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab created jointly by NASA, Google and USRA. This came soon after Lockheed-Martin's purchase of an upgrade of their 128-qubit D-Wave One™ system to a 512-qubit D-Wave Two computer. With headquarters near Vancouver, Canada, the D-Wave U.S. offices are located in Palo Alto, California. D‑Wave has a blue-chip investor base including Bezos Expeditions, Business Development Bank of Canada, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Goldman Sachs, Growthworks, Harris & Harris Group, In-Q-Tel, International Investment and Underwriting, and Kensington Partners Limited. For more information, visit: www.dwavesys.com or learn more at www.youtube.com/user/dwavesystems • Contact: Janice Odell, 415.738.2165 • [email protected]

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

SOURCE D-Wave Systems Inc.