Align Technology Patent Grants

Apparatus for mandibular relocation

Granted: June 25, 2024
Patent Number: 12016748
An apparatus for mandibular relocation may include a first appliance. The first appliance may include a first plurality of a teeth receiving cavities, a first engagement structure that may include a first engagement surface, and, a second engagement structure that may include a second engagement surface. The apparatus may include a second appliance. The second appliance may include a second plurality of teeth receiving cavities, a third engagement structure that may include a third…

Methods and systems of digital dental modeling

Granted: June 25, 2024
Patent Number: 12016745
Embodiments are provided for digital dental modeling. One method embodiment includes receiving a three-dimensional data set including a first jaw and a second jaw of a three-dimensional digital dental model and receiving a two-dimensional data set corresponding to at least a portion of the first jaw and the second jaw. The method includes mapping two-dimensional data of the two-dimensional data set to the three-dimensional digital dental model by transforming a coordinate system of the…

Dental appliance features for preventing lisping

Granted: June 18, 2024
Patent Number: 12011387
Dental appliances for preventing lisping. An aligner body is configured to apply orthodontic force to a patient's teeth within a dentition-receiving cavity to gradually align the patient's teeth. The dentition-receiving cavity includes a posterior teeth region having lateral walls configured to receive the patient's posterior teeth. The posterior teeth region includes occlusal cut-outs that are configured to expose occlusal surfaces of at least a portion of the patient's posterior teeth.…

Mounting system for optical element of intraoral scanner

Granted: June 18, 2024
Patent Number: 12011338
A scanner for scanning a dental site comprises a base, a detector mounted to the base, and an optical element to redirect light reflected off of the dental site towards the detector along a detection axis in a first direction. Two or more flexures couple the optical element to the base, wherein the two or more flexures maintain an alignment of the optical element to the detector with changes in temperature.

Wireless intraoral scanner for distributed intraoral scanning system

Granted: June 18, 2024
Patent Number: 12011337
In embodiments set forth herein, an intraoral scanner comprises a body, a probe at one end of the body, the probe comprising a scanner head, a wireless communication module disposed within the body, one or more optical sensor, and a touchscreen disposed on the body. The one or more optical sensor is to receive light that enters the scanner head and generate intraoral scan data based on the light, wherein the wireless communication module is to wirelessly send the intraoral scan data to a…

Methods of forming dental tooth positioning appliances

Granted: June 18, 2024
Patent Number: 12011332
Methods of forming dental tooth positioning appliances. Methods may include identifying a portion of a first digital model corresponding to a portion of the dentition for chemical treatment. Methods may also include forming a second digital model with a scaled up cavity by scaling up a size of a tooth of the first digital model. Methods may further include forming a polymeric shell including a scaled up cavity having dimensions that are proportional to a corresponding surface of the…

Dental attachment placement structure

Granted: June 11, 2024
Patent Number: 12004919
Dental attachment placement templates and dental appliance systems. The dental attachment placement templates may include a body configured to position a dental attachment over an attachment site on a surface of a tooth. The body may include an aperture, supports that extend from the body within the aperture, a connection member that connects the dental attachment to the supports, and a contoured surface shaped to register with one or more teeth. The connection member may be integrally…

Reinforced aligner hooks

Granted: June 4, 2024
Patent Number: 11998418
Orthodontic positioning devices, and related methods and systems, are disclosed for use with one or more orthodontic elastic members. The disclosed devices are configured to couple with an orthodontic elastic member so as to react a force from the elastic member into the appliance to, for example, generate traction forces on the patient's teeth to produce a desired occlusion. A positioning device includes a patient removable tooth positioning appliance having teeth receiving cavities…

Tooth shading, transparency and glazing

Granted: June 4, 2024
Patent Number: 11998410
Systems, methods, and/or computer-readable media described herein provide technical solutions to aid in the color matching of dental restorations. These systems, methods and/or computer readable media may receive a three-dimensional (3D) model of a tooth, where the 3D model includes a plurality of voxels, set each voxel to a starting optical property, and form a 3D visible light model from the 3D model by iteratively adjusting the optical property of each voxel based on optical…

Automatic detection of tooth type and eruption status

Granted: May 28, 2024
Patent Number: 11996181
Provided herein are systems and methods for detecting the eruption state (e.g., tooth type and/or eruption status) of a target tooth. A patient's dentition may be scanned and/or segmented. A target tooth may be identified. Dental features, principal component analysis (PCA) features, and/or other features may be extracted and compared to those of other teeth, such as those obtained through automated machine learning systems. A detector can identify and/or output the eruption state of the…

Automated detection, generation and/or correction of dental features in digital models

Granted: May 28, 2024
Patent Number: 11995839
Methods and systems are described that mark and/or correct margin lines and/or other features of dental sites. In one example a three-dimensional model of a dental site is generated from intraoral scan data of the dental site, the three-dimensional model comprising a representation of a preparation tooth. An image of the preparation tooth is received or generated. Data from the image is processed using a trained machine learning model that has been trained to identify margin lines of…

Methods of dental wire attachment

Granted: May 28, 2024
Patent Number: 11992386
Methods of attaching a wire to a dentition. The methods may include placing a shell on the dentition, where first cavity of the shell includes an attachment material reservoir for receiving an attachment material, and second cavity of the shell includes a wire attachment member having a slot for receiving the wire. The methods may also include placing the wire through the attachment material reservoir and through the slot of the wire attachment member to hold the wire in position with…

Virtual fillers for virtual models of dental arches

Granted: May 28, 2024
Patent Number: 11992382
A virtual filler is inserted in a virtual model of a dental site between a first tooth and a second tooth in the virtual model. One or more of the first tooth or the second tooth represent a natural tooth of a patient. Points of the first tooth, the second tooth and the virtual filler are transformed into a voxel volume. A geometry of an updated virtual filler is determined by transforming a surface of the voxel volume into a polygonal mesh.

Treatment-based image capture guidance

Granted: May 21, 2024
Patent Number: 11991440
A method for treatment-based photo guidance may include receiving a treatment plan, determining the movement of a first one or more teeth based on the movement of tooth models in the treatment plan, and determining one or more photo views for capturing the movement of the first one or more teeth.

Systems, apparatus, and methods for remote orthodontic treatment

Granted: May 21, 2024
Patent Number: 11991439
A method for dental treatment may include receiving photos of a patient's dentition, gathering treatment parameters for at treatment plan. The treatment parameters may represent attributes of the treatment plan selected by a doctor for the patient's dentition of a patient. The method may include generating, using the photos and the treatment parameters, one or more intelligent guidance rules to guide application of at least a portion of the treatment parameters to the patient's…

Patterned dental positioning appliances

Granted: May 21, 2024
Patent Number: 11986370
Patterned dental positioning appliances including a shell including one or more cavities shaped to receive and exert repositioning forces on one or more teeth of a subject's dentition. An inner surface of at least a portion of the one or more cavities may include a raised mesh pattern arranged to contact one or more teeth within the at least a portion of the one or more cavities. The raised mesh pattern may be arranged to impart a contact force that affects one or more of a direction, a…

Methods and systems for determining a dental treatment difficulty in digital treatment planning

Granted: May 21, 2024
Patent Number: 11986369
Methods and systems for determining a dental treatment difficulty in digital treatment planning. The methods may include calculating tooth position changes from an initial dental model to a target dental model in a mouth quadrant of a patient's dentition. The changes in position may be determined by projecting distances between initial positions and subsequent positions of teeth onto an arch line of the initial dental model. A treatment difficulty of anterior-posterior (A-P) correction…

Dental imaging attachment for a smartphone

Granted: May 14, 2024
Patent Number: D1027186

Image-based aligner fit evaluation

Granted: May 14, 2024
Patent Number: 11985414
A method for image-based orthodontic treatment may include receiving image data of a patient's dentition and an orthodontic appliance, identifying, from the image data, the orthodontic appliance, calculating a misalignment height of a misalignment of the orthodontic appliance with respect to the patient's dentition, determining whether the misalignment height satisfies a misalignment threshold, and in response to satisfying the misalignment threshold, providing a notification.

Method to modify aligner by modifying tooth position

Granted: May 14, 2024
Patent Number: 11980523
Polymeric shell appliances are provided in which the polymeric shell appliances are configured to provide one or more activation forces to facilitate tooth movement. In many embodiments, the activation forces are arranged to provide force in a direction opposite to an intended direction of tooth movement. The polymeric shell appliances may comprise one or more tooth receiving cavities, in which each of the plurality of tooth receiving cavities is shaped and arranged to provide a counter…