Barely a week after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that allowed companies and other parties that have licensed a patent to also challenge its validity, the high court today took a step that could make Columbia and Stanford Universities the first guinea pigs to test the workings of the new legal environment.

Columbia and Stanford were among a group of nine universities and higher-education groups that had unsuccessfully urged the court to reject the efforts of a drug company to challenge a patent after agreeing to license it. In that case, MedImmune Inc. v. Genentech Inc. et al., No. 05-608, the two universities were just bystanders, arguing that a decision allowing MedImmune’s tactic could create disruptions and expenses for many universities that use licensing to commercialize their inventions. But the court said last week that a party need not be at risk of infringing a patent to have standing to question its validity in court.

In today’s case, MedImmune Inc. v. Centocor Inc. et al., No. 05-656, the two institutions have a more direct interest. They are co-owners of a patent that is licensed to Centocor. MedImmune has obtained a sublicense to that patent through Centocor but is now seeking the right to challenge the validity of the universities’ patent. Lower courts have rejected that effort, but today the Supreme Court accepted MedImmune’s request that it consider the case and vacated the previously judgments, which had gone against MedImmune. Without issuing a written decision, the Supreme Court then ordered the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to reconsider the case, taking into account the high court’s reasoning in the previous MedImmune decision.