OrthoClear, Inc.

Company overview. OrthoClear, Inc. was a U.S. maker of clear removable dental aligners, founded in January 2005 in San Francisco by Zia Chishti — a co-founder and former CEO/chairman of Align Technology, the Invisalign maker — along with several other ex-Align employees. It was a private, venture-backed company; parent was OrthoClear Holdings, Inc. (Tortola, British Virgin Islands), with OrthoClear Pakistan Pvt. Ltd. (Lahore) as an operating affiliate. 3i Group led a $10 million Series D in August 2006. Company-issued material claimed over 1,300 employees and more than 20% North American clear-aligner share in 2005–06; those figures are self-reported and not independently verified. OrthoClear, Inc. has not operated since 2006.

Products / operations. It sold custom clear plastic aligners for cosmetic tooth straightening, positioned as a lower-cost alternative to Invisalign, plus web-based software ("OrthoView") for orthodontists to track treatment progress. Aligners were manufactured in Pakistan and imported into the U.S.

Patent-litigation posture. Purely a defendant in the tracked data (0 plaintiff cases, 1 defendant case), consistent with an operating company attacked by a larger incumbent rather than an NPE. The parties did sue each other across multiple fora (federal Lanham Act, state, and patent actions) — only the ITC matter is captured here.

Notable case. Align Technology, Inc. v. OrthoClear, Inc. (U.S. International Trade Commission, complaint filed Jan. 11, 2006; Section 337 investigation instituted Feb. 15, 2006) alleged infringement of roughly a dozen Align patents and misappropriation of trade secrets. A September/October 2006 settlement ended all litigation: OrthoClear consented to an ITC exclusion order barring U.S. imports, assigned its malocclusion-related IP to Align, accepted 5-year non-competes for principals, discontinued aligner operations worldwide, and received a one-time $20 million payment (Align recorded $14 million as non-compete value). A 2012 ITC enforcement action targeted ClearCorrect, not OrthoClear, as successor/bound party. The "Orthoclear" brand was separately revived in Europe from 2018 by CC Lab Technology Limited (Dublin) and Smile Aid GmbH (Berlin) — unrelated to OrthoClear, Inc.