At the center of this chaos stood ART+COM, a collective of artists, designers, engineers, and technologists. Founded in 1988, their mission was to explore the computer as a creative medium. Among the founders was Joachim Sauter, a professor of digital art, alongside pioneers who moved freely between the art world and the hacker scene.

Supported by Deutsche Telekom’s innovation branch Berkom and equipped with powerful Silicon Graphics (SGI) machines, they began building something radical: a digital model of the Earth itself.

Terravision – Before Google Earth

Terravision was more than a technical prototype. It was an artwork, an experience, a glimpse into the future. Users could start in space, see the Earth as a blue planet, zoom toward continents, glide over cities, and finally stand in front of detailed 3D models of buildings and streets. All this was based on satellite images, aerial photos, and geodata.

This was in 1994. The internet was barely graphical. Windows 95 hadn’t even launched. And here stood a group of Germans showing the world what we now take for granted.

At the ITU congress in Kyoto, Terravision became a sensation. A year later, at SIGGRAPH 1995 in Mountain View, California—the heart of Silicon Valley—the project reached an even larger audience. There, ART+COM presented their system to SGI and other U.S. tech companies. Terravision sparked fascination, and, as it turned out, planted seeds of interest that would later echo in another product: Google Earth.

The First Sparks of Conflict

ART+COM filed early for patent protection. In 1995 they registered in Germany, and in 1996 in the U.S., under the title “Method and Device for Pictorial Representation of Space-related Data.” On paper, it was protection against copies.

But patent law is a hard battlefield. For a patent to hold, the idea must be both new and sufficiently unique. And while ART+COM was working on their system, researchers on the American West Coast were exploring similar concepts. At Stanford Research Institute (SRI), developers were experimenting with their own TerraVision—a confusing name coincidence, but a separate technical implementation.

Enter Google

Fast-forward to the early 2000s. A small company named Keyhole Inc. was developing a product called Earth Viewer. Funded in part by the CIA’s venture capital arm In-Q-Tel, the system looked strikingly similar to Terravision: zooming, navigating, sweeping across the globe.

In 2004, Google acquired Keyhole. Two years later, Google Earth launched. It quickly became one of the most iconic software applications in history, installed on millions of computers worldwide.

For ART+COM, the launch was shocking. Wasn’t this their idea? Wasn’t this their technology? They contacted Google in 2006, citing their patent. They tried again in 2010. Each time, their attempts to negotiate licensing or recognition ended in silence.

Taking Google to Court

In 2014, ART+COM took drastic action: they sued Google in a U.S. court. The claim was massive—billions of dollars—arguing that Google Earth was built on their patented invention.

The lawsuit turned into high drama. ART+COM insisted that Google had seen their work through SGI contacts back in the 1990s. Google countered that Earth Viewer came from Keyhole, based on independent development and earlier research at Stanford.

At the heart of it all was a single question: Had ART+COM truly been first, and was their patent strong enough to stand?

The Decisive Blow: “Prior Art”

In court, Google called Stephen Lau, a developer from Stanford Research Institute. He testified that SRI’s own version of TerraVision had existed and been demonstrated publicly before ART+COM’s U.S. patent filing.

For the court, this was decisive. If similar technology had already been shown before a patent was filed, it’s called “prior art”—and the patent becomes invalid.

In 2016, the verdict came: ART+COM’s U.S. patent was ruled invalid. Google was cleared of infringement. ART+COM appealed, but in 2017 the ruling was upheld.

Visionaries Who Lost

For ART+COM, it was a crushing defeat. They had been pioneers, but their innovation never brought the global recognition—or financial reward—they had hoped for. Joachim Sauter continued as a celebrated digital artist and professor. Tragically, he passed away in 2021, the same year Netflix released The Billion Dollar Code.

Google Earth, meanwhile, became a worldwide success. Terravision faded into history—forgotten by most, remembered only by those who knew the backstory.

Netflix vs. Reality

Netflix chose to frame the story as a David-versus-Goliath tale. In the series, Carsten Schlüter and Juri Müller—fictional counterparts of Sauter and colleagues—stand against the corporate might of Silicon Valley. The show dramatizes Berlin’s creative chaos, the trip to California, and the emotional courtroom battle.

But the reality was more nuanced. The courtroom didn’t boil down to tearful closing arguments but to technicalities: patent claims, prior research, and legal definitions. The true pivot was Lau’s testimony about SRI’s TerraVision, which the show only loosely addressed.

Where Netflix paints Google as a villain stealing an idea, the legal record tells a colder truth: the court saw ART+COM’s patent as invalid.

Lessons from Terravision

1. Vision isn’t always enough.
ART+COM had a working global visualization before anyone else. But being first does not guarantee success. In technology, resources, timing, and networks often decide the outcome.

2. Patents are fragile weapons.
On paper, ART+COM held protection. In court, it evaporated. Software patents especially are vulnerable to prior art, vague wording, and the power imbalance between inventors and giants like Google.

3. History is written by winners.
Today, most remember Google Earth as Silicon Valley’s creation. Terravision lives mainly through Netflix’s dramatization. But the truth is more layered: behind every Silicon Valley triumph lies a forgotten pioneer.

Epilogue – A Lost Victory

Perhaps Terravision was never meant to be a commercial empire. Perhaps it was destined as an artistic glimpse into the future—proof of what was possible.

When Joachim Sauter passed away, obituaries noted that his work changed how we see the world. Not through billions of dollars, but through ideas. And maybe that is the true legacy: not money, but inspiration.

Every time we open Google Earth and zoom from space to street, we are, unknowingly, retracing the path first charted by a group of Berlin artists in the 1990s. They lost in court. But in history, they will never be erased.