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US 9,241,774 B2Granted
Patterned dental positioning appliance
AssigneeAlign Technology, Inc.
InventorsChunhua Li, Yan Chen
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments are provided for a patterned dental positioning appliance. One method embodiment includes receiving a dental mold of a patient's dentition, applying a pattern to a portion of the dental mold, and applying a material to the dental mold to form the removable dental positioning appliance that includes either the pattern on the portion of the dental mold or an inverse thereof.
Claims10
A method of forming a removable dental positioning appliance, comprising:
- applying a pattern to a portion of a dental mold of a patient's dentition corresponding to one or more of the patient's teeth, wherein applying the pattern to the portion of the dental mold includes applying a pre-patterned material to the dental mold;
- applying a material to the dental mold including the portion having the pattern to form the removable dental positioning appliance, comprising a shell including a plurality of inner cavities to contact the patient's teeth, such that the appliance includes either the pattern or an inverse thereof on a surface of the inner cavities, the pattern or the inverse thereof being designed to affect application of a force from the removable dental positioning appliance directly on a tooth of the patient;
- and
- releasing the pre-patterned material from the removable dental positioning appliance after the material forming the dental positioning appliance is applied to the dental mold.
1 more element
A method of forming a removable dental positioning appliance, comprising:
- applying a pattern to a portion of a dental mold of a patient's dentition corresponding to one or more of the patient's teeth, wherein applying the pattern to the portion of the dental mold includes building the pattern on the dental mold by removing material from the dental mold;
- and
- applying a material to the dental mold including the portion having the pattern to form the removable dental positioning appliance, comprising a shell including a plurality of inner cavities to contact the patient's teeth, such that the appliance includes either the pattern or an inverse thereof on a surface of the inner cavities, the pattern or the inverse thereof being designed to affect application of a force from the removable dental positioning appliance directly on a tooth of the patient.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.