ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,465,459, issued on Nov. 11, was assigned to Align Technology Inc. (San Jose, Calif.).
"Direct fabrication of orthodontic appliances with elastic regions" was invented by Avi Kopelman (Palo Alto, Calif.) and Jeeyoung Choi (Sunnyvale, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Methods for fabricating orthodontic appliances are provided. In some embodiments, a method includes directly fabricating a shell using an additive manufacturing technique. The shell can have an interior surface and an exterior surface. The interior surface can include a plurality of teeth-receiving cavities shaped to reposition a patient's dentition from a first arrangeme...