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US 12,193,908 B2Granted
Orthodontic appliance with non-sliding archform
AssigneeSwift Health Systems Inc.
InventorsTodd Oda, Alston Chung, Andres Rodriguez, Farrokh Farzin-Nia
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An orthodontic bracket and archform system that uses friction-free mechanics are disclosed. The archform can have a male fastener that can be retained within an orthodontic bracket. The orthodontic bracket can have varying locking mechanism, such as deflectable tabs, springs, locking pins, and others, that can cooperate with features of the male fastener to prevent sliding between the archform and the bracket.
Claims15
A method of forming an archform to move teeth of a patient, the method comprising:
- cutting an archform from a sheet of material, the archform comprising a plurality of bracket connectors and a plurality of interproximal loops, each of the plurality of bracket connectors comprising a tab protruding in an occlusal direction to a free end and a pair of arms protruding in a gingival direction to free ends, and each of the plurality of interproximal loops disposed between adjacent bracket connectors of the plurality of bracket connectors;
- and
- heat treating the archform such that the archform is in a martensite phase when a temperature of the archform is between 65 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit and an austenite phase when the temperature of the archform is between 97 and 99 degrees Fahrenheit.
A method of forming an archform to move teeth of a patient, the method comprising:
- forming an archform from a sheet of material, the archform comprising a plurality of bracket connectors and a plurality of interproximal loops, each of the plurality of bracket connectors comprising a tab protruding to a free end on a first side of the bracket connector and a pair of arms protruding to free ends on a second side of the bracket connector opposite the first side;
- and
- heat treating the archform to set a transition temperature of the archform such that the archform is in a martensite phase when a temperature of the archform is below the transition temperature and an austenite phase when the temperature of the archform is above the transition temperature.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.