ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,329,602, issued on June 17, was assigned to Align Technology Inc. (San Jose, Calif.).
"Modular fabrication of dental apparatuses" was invented by Jennifer Chavez (Fremont, Calif.), Peter Webber (San Jose, Calif.) and Peter Dorfinger (Los Altos Hills, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods of forming dental apparatuses, such as palatal expanders. Methods may include photopolymerizing a palatal region and left and right tooth engagement regions of a palatal expander. Junction regions coupling the palatal region and left and right tooth engagement regions may be formed using different combinations of first and second photo-curable ma...