US 12,064,316 B2
Method for appliances with bite adjustment structures
Rohit Tanugula, San Jose, CA (US); John Morton, San Jose, CA (US); Chunhua Li, Cupertino, CA (US); Bastien Pesenti, San Jose, CA (US); Jihua Cheng, San Jose, CA (US); and Jeeyoung Choi, Sunnyvale, CA (US)
Assigned to ALIGN TECHNOLOGY, INC., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed by Align Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US)
Filed on Dec. 4, 2019, as Appl. No. 16/703,613.
Application 16/703,613 is a division of application No. 16/425,829, filed on May 29, 2019, granted, now 11,141,243.
Application 16/299,011 is a division of application No. 14/186,799, filed on Feb. 21, 2014, granted, now 10,299,894, issued on May 28, 2019.
Application 16/425,829 is a continuation of application No. 16/299,011, filed on Mar. 11, 2019, granted, now 11,723,753.
Prior Publication US 2020/0100873 A1, Apr. 2, 2020
Int. Cl. A61C 7/36 (2006.01); A61C 7/00 (2006.01); A61C 7/08 (2006.01); G06F 30/00 (2020.01)
CPC A61C 7/36 (2013.01) [A61C 7/002 (2013.01); A61C 7/08 (2013.01); G06F 30/00 (2020.01)] 11 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method, comprising:
positioning a plurality of digital bite adjustment structures at lingual locations on a corresponding plurality of digital tooth receiving cavities of a digital model of an appliance for a first jaw at a first stage of a treatment plan;
designing the digital bite adjustment structures to extend from a lingual surface of the corresponding plurality of digital tooth receiving cavities and have a first surface shape and location specific to the first stage of a treatment plan to provide a disocclusion between the first jaw and the second jaw, the first surface shape being an external surface shape designed to interface with teeth of a second jaw;
adjusting the digital bite adjustment structures by changing the position of the plurality of digital bite adjustment structures on the corresponding plurality of digital tooth receiving cavities of the digital model of the appliance of the first jaw at a second stage of the treatment plan to create a digital model of the appliance for the first jaw for the second stage, the digital model of the appliance for the first jaw for the second stage having the first surface shape, the first surface shape being the external surface shape designed to interface with teeth of a second jaw; and
outputting the digital model of the appliance of the first jaw for the first stage and the digital model of the appliance for the first jaw for the second stage for fabrication of physical appliances of the first jaw at the first and the second stages of the treatment plan;
fabricating the physical appliances based on the digital model of the appliance of the first jaw for the first and the second stages of the treatment plan.