In re Beauregard, 1995
Beauregard was a very important case in the History of Software Patents. In re Beauregard is the case that opened things up completely for software patents. It signaled the end of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s resistance to allow patent applications that contained algorithms.
Beauregard’s invention, described in U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 07/521,858, now U.S. Patent No. 5,710,578 (to IBM), related to graphical raster displays, and to a system and method for filling in the area defined by the boundaries of a polygon that is being displayed on a graphical raster display system. The software patent relates to accurately filling a polygon by including the points in an algorithm, called the Bresenham algorithm, that define the boundaries of a polygon in the resulting filled polygon.
The…