By Andrew Karpan (January 20, 2022, 9:22 PM EST) — Federal Circuit judges will consider next week whether a medical device startup’s founder can attack a patent he helped develop after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the dispute last year narrowed rules for blocking inventors from challenging their own patents.

On Jan. 27, a three-judge panel will hold a special session to field dueling arguments from Hologic and rival Minerva Surgical over how to read last year’s Supreme Court decision on the subject of ​​assignor estoppel, a principle of patent law that bars inventors from challenging their own patents.

At the center of the case is a treatment for abnormal…