However, Google didn't seem to copy any of their tech but just implemented the same idea (a searchable/zoomable globe/map), which doesn't strike me as surprising as the idea isn't too farfetched and the tech is very much related to 3D graphics and game development, which had already come pretty far by 2004.
So the trailer implying they actually had it first and Google couldn't have done it without them seems pretty peculiar to me.
"Lau further testified that, at the SIGGRAPH '95 conference, he performed live demonstrations of SRI TerraVision to at least 500 people, and in fact “gave [ ] the source code to TerraVision” to Art+Com employees who were in attendance and “walk[ed] them through the source code.”"
1: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-federal-circuit/1878050.html
The court case was based on the patent date? which would be later?
“Terravision was a joint project from Weathernews International (Hiro Ishibashi, Andreas Schneider), ART+COM and DeTeBerkom. The series is a fictional adaptation of the events at that time and arose from the court transcripts as well as conversations with Joachim Suater, Pavel Mayer, Axel Schmidt, Gerd Grüneis, Martin Sibernagl.”
The show left out Keyhole, which actually wrote Google Earth before Google bought them. It was written 100% from scratch and based on different and better technology.
https://avibarzeev.medium.com/was-google-earth-stolen-7d1b82...