William Gibson and the trademarking of Cyberspace™
Susan Amkraut obscured behind Deborah
The Cyberspace Rumor
From the primary days of the net, folks have repeated the story that Autodesk trademarked “our on-line world” and Gibson retaliated by trademarking “Eric Gullichsen”.
Autodesk Cyberspace
In 1989, I used to be working on the Autodesk Research Lab on early digital actuality, a mission began after we visited Scott Fisher at NASA Ames. Our nascent system was a 386 with a pair of Matrox graphics playing cards on the ISA bus, a VPL EyePhone, a Polhemus tracker, and a knowledge glove. It ran at six to 10 frames per second on fashions with a couple of hundred polygons. Sluggish, however marginally sufficient to get us Through the Looking Glass.
Our motto was “Reality Isn’t Enough Any More”.
Timothy Leary
I used to be additionally spending loads of time hanging out with Timothy Leary, whose suggestion was chargeable for my quitting my job at MCC and transferring to California. I’d met him on the Hackers 2.0 convention in 1986 and gave him a experience to the San Jose airport. We turned quick buddies, and I did various writing with him, most of which stays unpublished. But that’s a narrative for later. Timothy, who seems in a samizdat Autodesk virtual reality video, nicknamed our VR lab “Cyberia”.
Timothy was an amazing fan of Gibson, and regarded his seminal 1984 novel Neuromancer extraordinarily prescient concerning the impending digital revolution.
As our VR developments crept slowly in the direction of changing into a product, we at Autodesk utilized to register a trademark “our on-line world”. Timothy knowledgeable me Gibson was a lot miffed about this, so I wrote him what I felt was a conciliatory letter,1 although ending snarkily by quoting his personal phrases, “The road finds its personal use for issues.”
In reply, Gibson had his legal professionals ship Autodesk a letter2. Which I recall we ignored.
Timothy – ever the incorrigible prankster – circulated the rumor that Gibson was trying to trademark “Eric Gullichsen” in retaliation. Then Barlow, for causes of his personal, embellished that rumor. Later amplified by Rudy Rucker.
Art Futura 1990
About a 12 months later – after I’d already left Autodesk for my VR startup, Sense8 Corporation – we have been invited to the inaugural Art Futura 1990 in Barcelona. And there, within the foyer of some swank resort, I met Gibson. He opined in a laconic drawl that though the road finds its personal use for issues “Autodesk shouldn’t be the road”.
There was loads of cava consumed within the small hours earlier than the time Barcelonans sit right down to eat limitless rounds of tapas. As I recall, in spite of everything the numerous Art Futura events we might put the matter behind us, or shut sufficient.
And there was a memorable go to to Gaudi’s Park Güell, whose big lizard of crazy-quilt ceramic seems in Count Zero.
So: Autodesk did apply to register Cyberspace, and Gibson actually did object. But Gibson attempting to trademark Eric Gullichsen was Timothy Leary’s prank, propagated till it turned accepted historical past.
