Surely a bought patent since Google didn't exist in the '80s but no matter
(The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed
The very first 'digital' currency is probably e-Cash during the '80s. It was developed by David Chaum, and in the '90s he developed another one (Digibit or Digicash, I don't remember enough).
The idea of a 'crypto' currency came later between the '90s and '2000s. It has always been "a dream" among the cypherpunks, they tried probably a dozen of projects but decentralization was not really a thing at this time before they evolve in a crypto-anarchism philosophy.
Satoshi came about 10 years after

If you want to read more about the history, this PDF is freehttps://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3079241