William Gibson and the Trademarking of Cyberspace

This is a first-person account by Eric Gullichsen about early virtual reality work at Autodesk in 1989 and a widely repeated rumor about trademarking "cyberspace." Gullichsen describes the lab’s DIY VR kit - a 386 PC with Matrox cards, a VPL EyePhone, Polhemus tracker and data glove running at six to ten frames per second - and the group’s motto, “Reality Isn’t Enough Any More.” Timothy Leary, a close friend who nicknamed the lab “Cyberia” and admired William Gibson, pushed the narrative that when Autodesk moved to register Cyberspace as a trademark Gibson objected. Gullichsen wrote Gibson a conciliatory letter quoting Gibson’s line “the street finds its own use for things,” and recalls Gibson’s lawyers sending a reply that Autodesk ignored.

Gullichsen traces the enduring myth that Gibson retaliated by trying to trademark “Eric Gullichsen” to a Leary prank, later amplified by figures like John Perry Barlow and Rudy Rucker. He reports meeting Gibson at Art Futura 1990 in Barcelona, where Gibson dryly observed that “Autodesk is not the street,” and says the dispute was effectively put to rest amid socializing and visits to Park Güell (whose Gaudí lizard echoes a scene in Gibson’s Count Zero). The verifiable points: Autodesk did apply to register Cyberspace, Gibson did object, but the retaliatory trademark story is invented.