Plaintiff
3 cases as plaintiff.
ClearCorrect Operating, LLC — commonly "ClearCorrect" — is a US clear-aligner manufacturer based in Round Rock, Texas (originally Houston). It was founded in 2006 by dentist Dr. Willis Pumphrey and related entities appear in the record as ClearCorrect, Inc., ClearCorrect Holdings, Inc. and ClearCorrect LLC. Straumann Group (SIX: STMN) acquired the company in 2017 for approximately USD 150 million; ClearCorrect now operates as a Straumann brand/subsidiary. Straumann disclosed 2016 sales of about USD 32 million and roughly 200 employees at the time of the deal; current standalone headcount and revenue are not separately published.
ClearCorrect designs and manufactures custom clear orthodontic aligners — transparent thermoplastic trays 3D-printed from dentist-supplied scans or impressions — sold to general dentists and orthodontists, along with retainers and digital treatment-planning services. Its advertised treatment options include Flex and Unlimited. Manufacturing and support are done in Round Rock, with direct sales in North America and distributors in markets such as Australia, the UK, Israel and New Zealand. It is an operating company, not a patent-assertion entity.
Its litigation posture is overwhelmingly defensive: 9 of 12 tracked cases name it as defendant and 3 as plaintiff. Nearly all are Align Technology, Inc. v. ClearCorrect matters — a 2011–2012 district court suit in the Southern District of Texas (not an Eastern District of Texas venue) and 2012 International Trade Commission proceedings, including enforcement of a 2006 consent order and Inv. No. 337-TA-833 involving ClearCorrect's Pakistan affiliate. Its three plaintiff-side appearances include a 2015 PTAB filing against Align.
The most consequential tracked case is ClearCorrect Operating, LLC v. International Trade Commission, in which the Federal Circuit (810 F.3d 1283, Nov. 2015) held that Section 337 "articles" are limited to material things, so the ITC lacks jurisdiction over electronic transmission of digital data — the digital tooth models ClearCorrect sent to Pakistan for processing. Rehearing en banc was denied in 2016, making the decision a widely cited precedent on ITC jurisdiction over digital imports.
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ClearCorrect petitioned for inter partes review of claims 1, 2, 9, and 10 of the '037 patent on obviousness grounds. The Board found the claims unpatentable on March 24, 2017, but the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded, and the proceeding was later terminated by settlement.
Appeal from the ITC's 337-TA-833 determination, resolved via ClearCorrect Operating, LLC v. ITC, 810 F.3d 1283 (Fed. Cir. 2015), which reversed the Commission's holding that electronic transmission of digital models is an imported article.
En banc Federal Circuit decision, 810 F.3d 1283, holding that the ITC's Section 337 jurisdiction does not extend to the electronic transmission of digital data. The appeal arose from the ClearCorrect enforcement proceeding tied to the 337-TA-562 Consent Order that covered U.S. 6,685,469.