transformer-patent-google-2019
IN premise — entries/2026/06/21/wiki-Transformer_deep_learning_architecture-chunk-7.md
Created 2026-06-21T09:50:10+00:00
The Transformer is covered by US Patent 10,452,978 ('Attention-based sequence transduction neural networks'), assigned to Google LLC, issued 2019-10-22.
Summary
The Transformer architecture, which underpins essentially all modern large language models, falls under a US patent held by Google, issued in late 2019. This matters because it grounds the system's reasoning about intellectual property: any downstream work, licensing analysis, or legal risk assessment involving transformer-based models can trace back to this specific patent as the root claim.
Dependents
These beliefs depend on this one:
- IN foundational-innovations-resist-proprietary-containment — Two major foundational innovations in the LLM field face intellectual property challenges that may limit proprietary containment: Google's Transformer patent (US 10,452,978, issued 2019) has seen widespread unlicensed adoption, while OpenAI's attempt to trademark 'GPT' encountered a USPTO office action indicating the term may be too descriptive or generic for US trademark protection (though it was secured in the EU and Switzerland). These cases suggest a pattern where widely adopted AI contributions may outpace IP protections, though the outcomes remain partially unresolved.
- IN google-simultaneously-deployed-patented-and-published — Google both deployed the Transformer internally (Google Translate transitioning from LSTM-based architectures by 2020) and sought proprietary protection (US Patent 10,452,978, filed 2019), illustrating that the company pursued parallel strategies of practical adoption and intellectual property containment for the same architecture.