Justices Reluctant to Ditch Doctrine Shielding Patent Buyers (2)

The U.S. Supreme Court wrestled with whether to alter a legal doctrine barring an inventor from challenging a patent on an invention assigned to another party, during oral argument in its review of a Federal Circuit decision.

The high court is reviewing a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit holding that the inventor of a surgical device and his current company, Minerva Surgical Inc., can’t argue two patents on the device are invalid to defeat infringement claims by his former employer Hologic Inc., which now owns the rights to the inventions.

A proposal by the U.S. solicitor ...