Throughout the years, Google moved the industry forward with technology that now underlies its fiercest competitors, namely OpenAI and its ChatGPT chatbot.
The "T" in ChatGPT stands for Transformer, a technology for large-language models created by Google's research lab. And Google did not just create the technology — it received patents on the work as well. This means Google could protect its intellectual property through litigation to thwart competitors.
Despite that, the philosophy at Google has long been to make its research available as open source to anyone, as described on its research website. Essentially, outside researchers gain access to a piece of AI technology from Google and continue iterating on it, which in turn benefits Google's own products.
Things have changed at Google in recent months. Leaders have told staff that the company would turn more inward, keeping new technology to itself while it works to release commercial products. One researcher at the company's DeepMind lab recently told Insider that the message from above is that "it's time to compete and keep knowledge in-house."
Several experts in patent law spoke to Insider about Google's AI patents, namely why it hasn't used them against competitors and whether it even could. They said Google likely won't get into any legal battles over emerging generative-AI tech because it would be challenging to litigate, and the company is instead focused on figuring out how to successfully integrate the technology into its existing businesses.
Technical and legal questions aside, it would be somewhat hypocritical for Google to sue anyone for infringing its AI patents.
"There are a lot of hurdles to overcome to assert a patent in this space, perhaps more so than during the smartphone era," said Matthew D'Amore, a professor of law at Cornell University. "I don't think you'll see any major legal conflicts anytime soon. The Big Tech companies are all spending a lot of money in this space, and they all know they're following the same patent strategy."
Patent wars
Legal experts pointed to the idea of "mutually assured destruction" to explain why tech companies would file patents without enforcing them offensively. Essentially, companies like Google and Microsoft could end up creating technology that overlaps with one another. Patents can be issued but are upheld through court challenges.
Even if Microsoft sued Google for infringing on a patent, Google could likely come right back and countersue over something else entirely, D'Amore said.
"If they think they have something interesting and can afford to file for a patent, it just makes sense to protect themselves in the event of future litigation," D'Amore said.
D'Amore pointed out that the tech giants constantly compete in fields like advertising and search but don't regularly sue each other.
In addition, technology companies can form patent-sharing agreements. For example, during the rise of smartphones, Google inked deals with a slew of companies including Samsung to share patents that cover mobile phones and to avoid litigation. Meanwhile, Apple first sued Samsung in 2011 over the design of the iPhone, a case that concluded in 2018 with an undisclosed settlement. Apple has also battled companies like HTC and Google for similar reasons.
Google can still enforce its patents through lawsuits if it chooses to, said Idong Ebong, an associate at the law firm Nixon Peabody.
Still, patent maintenance can be expensive, D'Amore noted. Taking legal action against potential patent infringement can have high legal costs and result in a patent being invalidated if the plaintiff's allegations of infringement are too broad and imprecise.
For that reason, patents are often filed as more of a defensive measure than an offensive one. Some companies, like IBM, have generated significant revenue from patent licensing.
Closed technology
One challenge with AI language models is that much of the technology is hidden from view. It's hard to see if a chatbot competitor has violated any patents when you can't examine the code to see how it's written. On the other hand, it's hard to steal any code that Google isn't sharing publicly.
Still, companies in AI are primarily concerned right now with other issues, like their strategies to make money, D'Amore said.
"You can break open a smartphone and look inside," said D'Amore. "But you can't easily de-compile a piece of software."
Google did not respond to a request for comment.
