Hologic Can’t Block Rival’s Surgical Products After Patent Nixed

Hologic Inc., the current owner of two surgical device patents, can’t block the device’s inventor from selling a competing product at a new company, the Federal Circuit affirmed.

The inventor successfully challenged one of Hologic’s patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He may invoke that success in the infringement case, even though as inventor he can’t challenge the patent itself in court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Wednesday.

Assignor estoppel—the doctrine that an inventor who assigns their patent rights to someone else can’t later claim the patent was wrongly issued—only stops inventors from ...