US 6450807

I'll search for authoritative information on US 6450807, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me run more targeted searches for any 2026 appellate activity and for the USPTO record.

Let me do one final check for litigation/appellate activity and the USPTO reexamination/reexam history.

US 6,450,807 B1 — Summary

Caution up front (two flags):

1. No 2026 CAFC docket or decision involving U.S. Patent 6,450,807 was found. The 2026 Federal Circuit activity I located involving Align Technology concerns different patents owned by Dental Monitoring (U.S. 11,049,248 and 10,755,409 in Dental Monitoring SAS v. Align Tech., Inc., No. 2024‑2270, Fed. Cir. July 7, 2026; and U.S. 11,049,248 / 11,109,945 in No. 25‑1879, Fed. Cir. July 21, 2026). Those are not 6,450,807 and should not be conflated. The '807 patent reached "Expired – Lifetime" status with an anticipated expiration of October 8, 2017, which is consistent with the absence of live 2026 appellate activity.
2. Date inconsistency in my sources: the task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," but the fetched patent page is timestamped 2026‑09‑29 and the search results include July 2026 opinions and a September 16, 2026 court filing. My searches were general web searches, not direct queries of USPTO PatentCenter or the CAFC docket system, so I cannot certify the absence of a 2026 filing — only that none surfaced.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (as printed)

"Methods and apparatus fit a set of upper and lower teeth in a masticatory system by generating a computer representation of the masticatory system and computing an occlusion based on interactions in the computer representation of the masticatory system."

Continuation family

Directly continuing cases sharing this specification include US 6,786,721 (10/133,155, filed Apr. 26, 2002), US 7,331,783 (10/788,510), US 8,070,487 (11/981,680), US 9,220,579 (13/281,997), and US 8,858,227 (13/620,253) — the last of which confirms in its own (63) section that "application No. 09/169,036, filed on Oct. 8, 1998, now Pat. No. 6,450,807."

Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 — Method of fitting teeth (the "digital treatment + aligner" claim).
A method with five steps: (a) scan a patient's teeth on a physical model to obtain data; (b) receive that data; (c) generate a computer representation of the patient's masticatory system; (d) determine an occlusion from that computer representation; and (e) generate a plurality of appliances whose geometries are selected to progressively reposition the teeth based on the determined occlusion — where the appliances are polymeric shells with cavities, and the cavities of successive shells have different geometries configured to receive and resiliently reposition teeth from one arrangement to the next. (Note: this granted claim text differs from the "Definitions" summary shown in some databases, which recites the invention without the scanning/appliance limitations — the granted claim language controls.)

Claim 37 — Method with jaw-motion simulation and mid-treatment updating.
Generates the computer representation, then determines occlusion by (i) modeling an ideal set of teeth, (ii) automatically applying the ideal set to the representation, and (iii) optimizing tooth positions to fit the ideal set. The masticatory system includes jaws, and the applying step comprises registering a model of the upper/lower teeth to a model of the masticatory system, simulating jaw motion to generate contact data, and placing a tooth in a final position based on that contact data while updating the representation with new patient data. It further covers the revision flow: with a prior ("first") teeth model, scan the patient's teeth to generate a second teeth model, match the second model to the first, apply a final position transform, and adjust tooth positions in the second model based on new information.

Claim 41 — Computer-implemented apparatus.
The apparatus form of claim 1: instructions causing a programmable processor to scan a patient's teeth on a physical model, receive the data, generate the computer representation, determine an occlusion, and generate the plurality of polymeric-shell appliances with successively different cavity geometries.

Claim 44 — System for defining a fit.
A processor, a display coupled to the processor, and a data storage device storing instructions to perform the same scan → represent → determine occlusion → generate appliance-series steps as claim 41.

Claim 47 — System for generating appliances.
A processor, display, data storage, and a scanner coupled to the processor for providing data to model the masticatory system; plus means for scanning a patient's teeth on a physical model, means for defining a fit between upper and lower teeth, means for fabricating a dental appliance in accordance with the fit, and means for generating a plurality of appliances (polymeric shells with successively different cavity geometries for resilient repositioning).

Dependent-claim highlights

• Static-occlusion branch (claims 2–19): ideal-teeth modeling, arch-form selection, registration via X-ray (5), CT (6), or mechanical-model data (7); kinematic (8) and constrained-motion (9) simulation; placement based on a "measure of undesirability" of contacts (10–12), which may be a function of PAR, distance-based, or shape-based metrics (13); a library of motions including protrusive (15), lateral (16), and tooth-guided (17) motions; applying physical forces to one jaw (18); updating with new patient data (19).
• Index/optimization branch (claims 20–36): determining indices from tooth position, deriving an optimality index, and setting the tooth accordingly (20); minimizing the index (21); indices based on PAR (22), distance metrics (23), shape metrics (24–25), occlusal (26) or orthodontic (27) indices; setting based on correspondence of features (28), cusps (29), fossae (30), or ridges (31); optimization via simulated annealing, hill climbing, best-first, or heuristics (32); testing tooth movements along each major axis (34) and rotations (35), updating position if the index is reduced (33, 36).
• Claims 38–40 (from 37): matching compares correspondences (38), including feature correspondences (39); new information may come from a new prescription (40).
• Claims 42–43 (from 41), 45–46 (from 44), 48 (from 47): mirror the static-occlusion and index-determining functionality for the apparatus and system forms.

Litigation / enforcement history (from search results)

• ITC Inv. No. 337‑TA‑562, Certain Incremental Dental Positioning Adjustment Appliances and Methods of Producing Same, instituted Feb. 15, 2006 on Align's complaint against OrthoClear; claim 1 of the '807 patent was among the asserted claims. The investigation was terminated as to the '807 patent by Order No. 10 (July 12, 2006), with Commission notice of non‑review on July 20, 2006.
• The Federal Circuit's Align Tech., Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n decisions in Nos. 13‑1240 and 13‑1363 (opinion July 18, 2014) arose from the § 210.75 enforcement proceeding on the 2006 consent order and concern the '511 and '880 patents (and the "digital datasets as articles" question) rather than the '807 patent. Google Patents' litigation panel lists these CAFC appeals and N.D. Cal. case 5:15‑cv‑04864 against the '807 family.
• Align also filed a district-court action against OrthoClear in the Western District of Wisconsin (Jan. 11, 2006) asserting the '807 patent among others; that case was dismissed without prejudice on Aug. 10, 2006 pending the ITC proceeding.

What I could not confirm

• No 2026 CAFC docket entry, opinion, or order for 6,450,807 was located.
• No 2026 USPTO post-grant proceeding (IPR/PGR/reexam) on the '807 patent surfaced. Given the patent's October 2017 expiration, such a filing would be unusual.
• My verification relied on Google Patents, Justia Patents, ITC/Federal Register notices, and Align SEC filings surfaced via web search; I did not directly query the USPTO PatentCenter API or the CAFC CM/ECF docket, so treat the "no 2026 activity" conclusion as not found in search results rather than as a certified null result.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6450807 across patent litigation sources.

Let me dig deeper into specific cases.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 6,450,807

Short answer: Yes — U.S. Patent No. 6,450,807 ("System and method for positioning teeth," Align Technology, Inc.) has been asserted in litigation, but its appearances are concentrated in International Trade Commission Section 337 proceedings, not in district-court infringement suits. The '807 patent was asserted in the original ITC investigation involving OrthoClear; that matter and its enforcement/appellate progeny are the core of the litigation history. The patent expired on October 8, 2017 (Google Patents lists it as "Expired – Lifetime / Anticipated expiration"), so no live infringement actions remain.

Important limiting note: the '807 patent is one of a large Align family, and many Align lawsuits assert other Align patents (e.g., 6,398,548; 6,554,611; 6,722,880; 6,471,511). I have been careful below to flag only matters where the search results specifically tie the '807 patent to the case, and I flag uncertainties explicitly.

1. ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-562 — Certain Incremental Dental Positioning Adjustment Appliances and Methods of Producing Same

Where the '807 patent appears: The Notice of Investigation states the complaint alleged infringement of, inter alia, "claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 6,450,807." It was one of 12 Align patents asserted.

• Source: Federal Register, 71 FR 7995 (Feb. 15, 2006), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/full_text/xml/2006/02/15/E6-2164.xml ; https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/FR-2006-02-15/E6-2164

Note on the Consent Order: Per the Federal Circuit's recitation, the Consent Order's importation prohibition ran "until the expiration of the last to expire of the following patents … U.S. Patent No. 6,722,880 … [and] U.S. Patent No. 6,471,511." The '807 patent was asserted in the complaint but is not the patent recited in the enforcement/expiration clause of the Consent Order, so the enforcement phase centered on the '880 and '511 patents. (Align Tech., Inc. v. ITC, 771 F.3d 1317, 1321–22 (Fed. Cir. 2014).)

2. ITC Enforcement Proceeding (same investigation, No. 337-TA-562) and Federal Circuit Appeal

• Source: Align Technology, Inc. v. International Trade Commission, 771 F.3d 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2014), https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[2684787](/patent/2684787)/align-technology-inc-v-international-trade-commission/

Where the '807 patent appears: The CAFC opinion's footnote 1 lists "U.S. Patent Nos. 6,685,469; 6,450,807; 6,394,801; 6,398,548; 6,722,880; 6,629,840; 6,699,037; 6,318,994; 6,729,876; 6,602,070; 6,471,511; and 6,227,850" as the patents asserted in the underlying investigation. The merits of the '807 patent were not reached on appeal — the appeal turned on the scope of the Consent Order (whether electronically transmitted digital data sets were covered). The Commission had held the data sets were not covered because the consent order lacked express language on electronic transmission.

3. California Northern District Court Case 5:15-cv-04864 — unconfirmed as to '807

The Google Patents litigation metadata for US 6,450,807 lists one U.S. district court case — a California Northern District Court action, case number 5:15-cv-04864 — as part of the family's litigation record, with a link to Unified Patents' litigation portal.

• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6450807/en (litigation section)

Caveat: My searches did not return a docket or complaint confirming the parties, cause of action, or whether the '807 patent was actually asserted in that case (versus the case being tied merely to the family or to a related Align patent). I cannot confirm the plaintiff, defendant, or that '807 was asserted, and I decline to guess. This should be verified directly against PACER (N.D. Cal. 5:15-cv-04864) or the Unified Patents litigation portal before being relied upon.

4. Matters that involve Align but that I could NOT tie to the '807 patent

For completeness (and to prevent misattribution):

• Ormco Corp. v. Align Technology, Inc., No. 03-cv-00016 (C.D. Cal., filed Jan. 6, 2003); appeals at 2006-1240, -1274 and 2007-1080 (Fed. Cir., Aug. 24, 2007). Ormco's asserted patents were the '432, '243, '861 and '444 patents; Align counterclaimed on U.S. Patents 6,398,548 and 6,554,611. The '807 patent was not among the patents I identified as asserted in this case. (Ormco v. Align, Fed. Cir. 2007, https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2007/08/24/Ormco_Corporation_Et_Al._v._Align_Technology.pdf)
• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-833 (Align v. ClearCorrect; separate from 337-TA-562) — asserted patents were the '511 and '880 patents plus trade secrets. (771 F.3d at 1319 n.2.)
• Align v. 3Shape ITC action — asserted the '192, '647, '611, '958 and '538 patents. (3Shape/Align ITC complaint, via Docket Alarm.)
• Weber consumer class action (N.D.N.Y., filed May 18, 2007) — a contract/consumer action against Align and OrthoClear, not a patent suit. (Align SEC disclosures.)

Summary

Direct answer to your question: The only litigation I can confirm in which U.S. Patent 6,450,807 was expressly asserted is ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-562 (Align Technology v. OrthoClear and successors), and its enforcement/appeal progeny (Fed. Cir. 2013-1240/-1363, 771 F.3d 1317). The '807 patent is now expired (Oct. 8, 2017), and I found no currently pending case asserting it.

Reliability caveat: I confirmed the '807 assertions via the Federal Register notice (71 FR 7995), the govinfo record, and the Federal Circuit opinion in 771 F.3d 1317. The existence and details of the N.D. Cal. 5:15-cv-04864 case rest solely on Google Patents' litigation metadata and could not be corroborated in my searches; treat it as unverified. If you need litigation-grade verification, I'd recommend pulling the ITC EDIS docket for 337-TA-562 and running a PACER/Docket Navigator query on patent 6,450,807 directly.

PTAB / AIA Trial Review — US 6,450,807 B1 ("System and method for positioning teeth")

Assignee: Align Technology, Inc. · Inventors: Chishti & Beers · Priority: 1997-06-20 · Filed: 1998-10-08 · Granted: 2002-09-17

Proceedings overview

There are zero AIA trial proceedings (IPR, PGR, or CBM) on US 6,450,807. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied with this task reports that the USPTO Open Data Portal returned no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and targeted web searches for an IPR/PGR/CBM petition naming the '807 patent returned nothing — no institution decision, no FWD, no termination, no Federal Circuit appeal from an AIA trial on this patent number. The breakdown is therefore: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

Bottom line for a defendant: this is not a "hardened by surviving two IPRs" patent, and it is also not a "claims 1-5 are canceled" patent. It is an untested-in-AIA patent. That cuts both ways:

• Nothing is canceled, so you cannot point to a PTAB FWD and say the asserted claim is dead.
• Nothing has been adjudicated, so the PTAB has never construed these terms or passed on the strongest art, and there is no § 315(e) estoppel binding anyone against this patent.
• Critically, per the structured data the patent's anticipated expiration is 2017-10-08 and its legal status is "Expired – Lifetime." Any assertion today is a past-damages-only case (subject to the 6-year § 286 lookback), with no injunction available and no ongoing royalty. That materially changes the economics of whether an IPR is even worth filing.

Proceedings on this patent

None. There is no proceeding to summarize. I will not manufacture a docket number. The remainder of this report covers (a) the non-AIA litigation history on the '807 that is on file, so you know which claims have actually been asserted, and (b) the AIA activity on sibling Align patents with a shared specification/priority chain — which is where the useful defensive leverage lies.

Non-AIA litigation referencing the '807 patent (context, not PTAB)

• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-562 — Certain Incremental Dental Positioning Adjustment Appliances and Methods of Producing Same (Align Technology v. OrthoClear et al.). Instituted 2006-02-07; notice published 71 FR 7995 (2006-02-15). Align asserted claim 1 of U.S. 6,450,807 among twelve patents. Source: Federal Register E6-2164.
  • Defensive value: the only claim of the '807 ever publicly asserted (claim 1) is also the claim that the entire claim set hangs from. It was asserted in an ITC action that terminated by settlement (OrthoClear), so claim 1 has never been construed by a court or the PTAB. Claim construction of claim 1's "scanning a patient's teeth on a physical model thereof" step — added during prosecution and central to the claim — is wide open.
• Align v. OrthoClear, W.D. Wis. (filed 2006-01-11) asserted the '807; stayed 2006-03-10 pending the ITC case and dismissed without prejudice 2006-08-10. Source: Align 8-K, 2006-08-17.
• The Google Patents family record also lists Federal Circuit case nos. 13-1240 and 13-1363 and N.D. Cal. case 5:15-cv-04864 in this family's litigation history. I could not verify in this session that any of them concerns the '807 specifically — do not treat them as AIA proceedings, and do not assume they are '807 appeals.

Sibling-patent AIA activity (shared specification / same Align family — leverage, not this patent)

• ClearCorrect Operating LLC v. Align Technology, Inc. — IPR on U.S. 6,669,037 ('037), a sibling in the same 08/947,080-priority chain. Board FWD 2017-03-24: all challenged claims (1, 2, 9, 10) unpatentable under § 103 over Snow (US 6,068,482) + Hultgren (US 6,217,334) + Kesling (US 2,467,432). CAFC affirmed, No. 2017-2106, 2018-08-22 (nonprecedential). Source: CAFC opinion 17-2106.
  • Defensive value: proves that Align's foundational "compute tooth arrangements digitally → control a fabrication machine" claims in this family are vulnerable to the Snow/Hultgren/Kesling combination, and that the Board will construe Align's "providing digital data" language broadly. It is not a holding on the '807, whose claim 1 carries extra limitations (physical-model scanning; the "plurality of appliances … polymeric shells … successive shells have different geometries" element) that the '037 claims lack. Expect Align to argue those differences.
• ClearCorrect Operating LLC v. Align Technology, Inc. — IPR2025-00820 on U.S. 8,038,444 ('444), a later Align treatment-planning patent. Filed 2025 (still pending as of the latest records I could retrieve). Source: ClearCorrect prior-art narrowing, WDTX 6:24-cv-00187.
  • Defensive value: confirms ClearCorrect/Straumann is the active, repeat challenger to Align's orthodontic portfolio (WDTX 6:24-cv-00187; complaint asserting nine patents; jury verdict 2026-07-07 finding claims in four asserted patents invalid). Nothing in that campaign has targeted the '807 — consistent with the '807 being expired and lower-value.
• 3Shape A/S v. Align Technology IPRs (e.g., IPR2019-00154/-00157, IPR2020-01645) target Align's scanner/color-imaging patents ('228, '089), a different family entirely — cited only to show Align is a frequent both petitioner and patent owner in AIA trials.

Strategic summary

Claim status. On this record: CANCELED = none. SUSTAINED = none. UNTESTED = claims 1–48 in their entirety. No AIA tribunal has touched any claim of the '807. The only claim with real-world assertion history is claim 1 (ITC 337-TA-562), and the only claim-level challenge to it was a 2006 ITC invalidity defense that never reached final adjudication because OrthoClear settled. Claim 1 is an independent method claim requiring (i) scanning a patient's teeth on a physical model to obtain data, (ii) generating a computer representation of the masticatory system, (iii) determining occlusion from that representation, and (iv) generating a plurality of polymeric-shell appliances with successively different cavity geometries. Claims 41, 44, and 47 recast the same subject matter as apparatus/system claims with the identical scanning-and-shell limitations; claims 2–36 and 37–40 are dependent or narrower independent variants. All 48 remain presumptively valid and entirely unadjudicated.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR/CBM was ever instituted on the '807, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel running against any party with respect to this patent — not against ClearCorrect, not against 3Shape, not against anyone. Every § 102/§ 103/§ 112 ground is still available to you in district court. Conversely, nothing you could file at the PTAB is barred by prior art already litigated: the Snow/Hultgren/Kesling combination that killed the '037 has never been applied to the '807's claim 1, and a district-court invalidity case built on those references plus physical-model prior art (e.g., Kesling-style cut-and-reset model techniques) is unencumbered. Note the § 315(b) one-year clock still runs from service of any complaint — but given the 2017 expiration, the practical § 315(e)(2) estoppel that matters to you (whether you can later rely on art you raised in an IPR) only becomes an issue if you choose to file.

Pattern signals. (1) No petitioner has filed any IPR on the '807 — despite the patent being asserted at the ITC in 2006 and being a named Align patent ever since; the absence of PTAB activity over 25+ years, while Align's other patents drew repeated IPRs, is a strong signal that challengers viewed the '807 as expired/low-value or as a weaker assertion vehicle. (2) The patent owner (Align) has litigated this family aggressively but administratively — Align has appeared as appellant from adverse FWDs on sibling patents ('037, 17-2106) and as a frequent PTAB petitioner and patent owner elsewhere; expect a vigorous defense if you do file. (3) No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears in the chain for this patent number; the visible challengers are operating companies (ClearCorrect/Straumann, 3Shape). (4) The patent is expired, so Align's incentive to settle cheaply or to drop marginal past-damages claims is elevated.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not tell your decision-maker "the '807 claims are invalidated" — they aren't. There is no FWD to cite. If you need an invalidity anchor from the same family, rely on the '037 FWD (2017-03-24) and its CAFC affirmance, No. 2017-2106 (2018-08-22) — but characterize it accurately as a sibling patent with a materially narrower claim 1, and do not quote it as disposing of the '807. Link: CAFC 17-2106.
2. Confirm the expiration date off the face of the patent and the PTO's maintenance-fee/expiration record before you build a defense around § 286. The structured data states anticipated expiration 2017-10-08 with status "Expired – Lifetime," which is consistent with a 20-year term running from the 1997-10-08 parent filing; verify any patent term adjustment on the printed patent.
3. If you are pre-suit or within the § 315(b) window and past damages are material, run a freedom-to-operate-style prior-art search specifically against claim 1's physical-model scanning step plus the successive-shell limitation. Snow/Hultgren/Kesling is the first combination to chart, using the '037 FWD as the Board's adopted roadmap; add 1990s-era physical-model/articulator and vacuum-forming art for the method step. There is no estoppel to worry about and no prior institution you must distinguish under § 325(d)/§ 314(a) — you would be the first petitioner.
4. Weigh the cost-benefit: an IPR on an expired patent can still kill past-damages exposure (the Board will decide claims even on an expired patent — see the '037, which expired in October 2017 and still produced a 2017 FWD affirmed in 2018), but it will not buy you peace on any live Align patent. If Align's demand letter is built on the '807 alone, a cheaper first move is a § 282 invalidity position plus the expiration/§ 286 argument in district court.
5. Monitor the ClearCorrect v. Align campaign (WDTX 6:24-cv-00187 / IPR2025-00820). If ClearCorrect expands its IPR filings to older Align patents, a petition against the '807 could appear later; nothing on file today suggests one exists. Treat "no PTAB activity on file" as the operative fact, and re-check the ODP trial-proceedings endpoint periodically.

Confidence note: I am highly confident that no AIA trial has been instituted on US 6,450,807 based on the ODP structured data plus negative search results; I did not locate any record of a filed-but-not-instituted or recently filed, un-indexed petition either. I could not independently verify what the listed CAFC case nos. 13-1240 / 13-1363 concern, and I am not asserting they involve the '807 — they are recorded in the family's litigation metadata only.

I'll research the assignment record for US 6,450,807, focusing on USPTO Assignment Center records and any SEC/8-K corroboration.

Let me search for the specific recorded assignment details and Align's SEC/corporate history.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 6,450,807 B1

Source-access caveat (read first). I was not able to query the USPTO Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov interface directly — that portal is a JavaScript search application, and none of my searches surfaced the underlying reel/frame record for this patent. Everything below that is not the Google Patents legal-events entry is therefore unverified against the Assignment Center. I have not fabricated any reel/frame number. Where the operative field (reel/frame, correspondent, execution date) could not be recovered, I say so rather than estimate.

Date inconsistency flag (carried forward from the earlier sections): the prior sections note a conflict between an "April 26, 2026" task date and a 2026-09-29 fetch timestamp. This task is dated 2026-09-29. Neither affects the ownership chain, which closed in 1999.

Inventors

Pattern note: the inventors are founder-level insiders, not ordinary engineers, and the assignment runs to the company they founded. That is the opposite of the "all inventors depart the original assignee within 12 months of filing" fire-sale precursor described in the task brief. Here, no inventor departed within 12 months of the Oct. 8, 1998 filing: Beers remained at Align for many years, and Chishti remained Chairman/CEO until roughly 2001–2003 (one German-language trade source states Chishti left Align in 2003; Align's own litigation releases describe him recruiting Align staff for OrthoClear "as early as 2002, while he was still Chairman"). A departure did eventually occur — but it post-dates the assignment by ~4 years, so it is not a portfolio-transfer signal.

Original assignee

• Entity on the face of the patent: Align Technology, Inc. (Sunnyvale / Santa Clara, CA at the relevant times; now San Jose, CA). Recorded on the patent as both original and current assignee on Google Patents.
• Primary line of business: design, manufacture and sale of the Invisalign® clear-aligner orthodontic system. Align's own 10-K text describes it as: "Align Technology, Inc. designs, manufactures and markets the Invisalign system, a proprietary method for treating malocclusion, or the misalignment of teeth."
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — directly. Claim 1 recites "generating a plurality of appliances … polymeric shells having cavities … cavities of successive shells have different geometries shaped to receive and resiliently reposition teeth." That is the Invisalign aligner series. The patent is not a paper patent in the hands of a non-practicing entity; it is a core product patent of an operating company.
• Current status: Operating, public, expanding. Nasdaq: ALGN. FY2017 10-K lists operating subsidiaries (Align Technology, Inc. (DE), Align Tech Dr. Costa Rica, Align Technology B.V., Alignment de Mexico, Malocclusion C.V.). No dissolution, no bankruptcy, no assignment of the '807 patent away from Align. The patent itself is Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration Oct. 8, 2017), while the assignee remains a going concern.

Assignment timeline

Recorded assignments found: one (1). Google Patents' legal-events panel for US 6,450,807 lists a single post-filing reassignment entry:

• Executed date: not surfaced / recorded 1999-01-04 — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not recoverable from available sources)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: CHISHTI, MUHAMMAD and BEERS, ANDREW (individually)
  • Assignee: ALIGN TECHNOLOGY, INC.
  • Correspondent: not recoverable. The Google Patents legal-events entry does not reproduce the correspondent field, and my searches did not return an Assignment Center abstract page for this reel. I decline to guess the attorney or firm. (For orientation only: the prosecution-side agent of record on related Align filings of this vintage was James M. Heslin, Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP, Two Embarcadero Center, San Francisco — per the WO 01/80762 front page for a related Align case. That is a prosecution correspondent, not a confirmed assignment-recording correspondent, so it must not be treated as a finding here.)
  • Context: In-house founder-to-company assignment — the standard confirmation instrument perfecting Align's title to its founders' inventions. Not an acquisition, not a fire-sale, not a securitization, not a transfer to an asserter.

Records I affirmatively did NOT find (and did not invent):

• No assignment from Align Technology, Inc. to any IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures entity.
• No security agreement, mortgage, or collateral assignment of this patent recorded against it. Consistent with this: Align's Comerica Bank loan-and-security documents surfaced in SEC exhibits state expressly that "the 'collateral' shall not include the Intellectual Property of Debtor, but shall include any and all cash proceeds … of Debtor's Intellectual Property." Align excluded its patents from the collateral pool, so no IP security-interest recording on the '807 patent would be expected.
• No merger, change-of-name, or release recordings. (Align's OrthoClear transaction was an acquisition by Align and did not disturb Align's ownership of the '807 patent.)

Honest limitation: a single legal-events entry is consistent with a one-record chain, but Google Patents' "reassignment" panel is not a certified complete assignment history. A direct Assignment Center query on patent number 6,450,807 could reveal an additional record (e.g., a later confirmatory assignment or a release) that my sources did not surface. I could not perform that query. Treat the timeline as "one confirmed record, no others found," not as "the register is provably empty."

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6450807
    1997 : Align Technology founded
         : Chishti and Wirth launch Invisalign
    1998 : Application 09 169 036 filed Oct 8
    1999 : Chishti and Beers assign to Align Tech
    2002 : Patent US 6450807 issues Sep 17
    2006 : Asserted at ITC against OrthoClear
    2017 : Patent expires Oct 8
    2026 : Still held by Align Technology

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Score: zero of eight NPE/privateering signals present. The only signal that even superficially invites inquiry — the presence of a founder in the inventor list who later left the company — is expressly disqualified: Chishti's departure post-dates the assignment by ~4 years and produced the OrthoClear infringement dispute in which the '807 patent was asserted against him, not by a shell.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

US 6,450,807 is a single-hop, founder-to-company assignment — Chishti and Beers → Align Technology, Inc., recorded 1999-01-04 — and it stayed with Align through the patent's Oct. 8, 2017 expiry (Expired – Lifetime) with no recorded downstream transfer of any kind. Align is a product company that ships the claimed subject matter (Invisalign polymeric aligner series with successively different cavity geometries, per claim 1) and asserted claim 1 of this patent in its own name against a competitor in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-562 (filed Jan. 11, 2006). There is no shell LLC, no NPE assignee, no cascading transfer, no pre-suit assignment, and no privateering anywhere on the record; the eight-factor screen returns zero present signals.

Structural caveat, stated plainly: the brief's taxonomy supplies an "Insufficient data (no records, or only the original assignment)" option, and a stricter reading of this chain — one assignment in 27 years — maps to that category. I chose Operating-company assertion over Insufficient data because the single recorded link is (a) fully identified as to assignor, assignee and date, (b) corroborated by Align's public status as the shipper of the claimed product, and (c) reinforced by a documented enforcement use of the patent. If litigation-grade certainty is required, the two unresolved gaps are the reel/frame and correspondent of the 1999-01-04 recording, plus confirmation that no additional record exists — both obtainable only by a direct query.

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center search gateway — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — search patent number 6,450,807.

I'll research the prior art and citations for US 6,450,807, starting with the USPTO record and the patent's citation data.

I have the citation list. Let me verify the full prior-art-of-record list and the details of the key references from additional sources.

Let me confirm the complete "References Cited" list from the patent's front page and verify details of several key references.

Prior Art of Record for U.S. Patent 6,450,807 B1

A. Scope, sources, and important caveats

What I did. I searched for the specific number 6,450,807 / US 6,450,807 B1 only, and took the citation list from the patent's face ("References Cited" — U.S. Patent Documents, Foreign Patent Documents, and Non-Patent Literature). I did not include results for similar numbers (e.g., 6,450,565, 6,457,972, 6,454,807-type neighbors, or the sibling family members 6,786,721 / 7,331,783 / 8,070,487 / 9,220,579 / 8,858,227), and I flag below one place where search results risk that kind of mix-up.

Sources actually used. Google Patents (US6450807B1), Justia Patents (patent/6450807 "Referenced Cited"), USPTO-hosted / patentimages documents and PTAB–IPR exhibit PDFs surfaced through search, and PubChem's patent record for WO‑94/10935. I did not directly query the USPTO PatentCenter/PatFT API or the examiner's file wrapper. Consequence: I can reproduce the list of references cited on the face of the patent, but I cannot certify which references the examiner applied against which claims, or under §102 vs. §103 — that is in the Image File Wrapper, and my ability to reach it here was limited.

Two hard caveats on the "anticipation" question.

1. Anticipation requires every element of a claim in a single reference. This list is a prior-art-of-record list, not a list of anticipating references. Most of these documents were cited as background or under §103. My claim mapping below is my own analytical judgment, clearly labelled as such, not the examiner's record.
2. Claim 1 as granted is the anchor. As noted in the previously generated summary, granted claim 1 requires the combination of (a) scanning a patient's teeth on a physical model to obtain data, (b) a computer representation of the masticatory system, (c) determining an occlusion from that representation, and (d) generating a plurality of polymeric-shell appliances whose successive cavities have different geometries for resilient repositioning. No single reference on this list appears to disclose all four — which is consistent with claim 1 having been allowed over them. I explain this in §G.

Date note (carried forward). The prior summary already flagged that the task states a "current date" of April 26, 2026 while the fetched Google Patents page is timestamped 2026‑09‑29. That inconsistency is unresolved and I do not rely on it. It does not affect a 1997/1998-priority prior-art analysis.

Identifier fidelity note. Throughout, I have used the numbers as printed in the source. Where a citation surfaced as an 8-digit string (e.g., "5382164"), I have rendered it as the corresponding 7-digit U.S. patent number (5,382,164) and said so — this is formatting, not correction of an identifier.

B. Confirmed identity (for the record)

Because the '807 is a CIP/continuation, the effective prior-art cutoff is its own 1997 priority; references published or filed before June 20, 1997 / October 8, 1997 are the candidates. Note especially US 5,683,243, which issued Nov. 4, 1997 (after the cutoff) but was filed in a chain reaching back to Nov. 9, 1992 — so it is available only under §102(e)(2), not as a printed publication.

C. U.S. Patent Documents cited on the face of US 6,450,807

† = title/description inferred from search results or general knowledge; exact title not independently verified in this session. "§102 claim map" is my assessment of which claims the reference could bear on if used anticipatorily; it is not a record of actual rejections.

Note on 5,382,164. The Justia face list renders this citation as the 8‑digit string "5382164"; it corresponds to U.S. 5,382,164, issued Jan. 17, 1995. I have not altered the number — only its display width.

D. Foreign Patent Documents

E. Non-Patent Literature cited (all on the face of the '807 patent)

These cluster into two themes: (i) tooth-positioner appliances (the physical ancestor of the polymeric shell of claim 1(e)) and (ii) 3-D dental cast measurement.

F. Tiered assessment — the most relevant prior art

Tier 1 — closest to the computerized side of the claims

1. WO 94/10935 A1 (Ormco / Andreiko & Payne), pub. May 26, 1994, and its U.S. counterparts, especially US 5,683,243 (filed Jun. 2, 1995 → available under §102(e)(2)), US 5,431,562, US 5,447,432, US 5,454,717, US 5,456,600, US 5,474,448. These disclose scanning a physical model, building a computer model of the dentition, and calculating finish tooth positions in a computer — arguably the closest teaching to claims 1(b)–(d) and to claim 37's "model an ideal set of teeth / automatically apply / optimize." They do not disclose a series of polymeric shells with successively different cavity geometries.
2. US 5,605,459 (Kuroda) + the Kuroda 1996 NPL article — direct teaching of scanning a physical dental cast to obtain a 3-D digital model. This is the clearest hit against the "scanning a patient's teeth on a physical model" limitation of claim 1 and against the scanner element of claims 41/44/47.

Tier 2 — the polymeric-shell/positioner lineage (claim 1(e), 41, 44, 47)
3. US 5,035,613 / 5,055,039 / 5,059,118 / 5,186,623 (Breads; Abbatte) — orthodontic finishing positioners (molded polymeric tooth-receiving shells) and methods of constructing them; plus the Kesling / Warunek / Cottingham / Nishiyama / Kamada literature and the Biostar thermoforming manual. Strong on the "polymeric shell with a teeth-receiving cavity," weak-to-absent on computer-determined occlusion and on a series of differently-shaped shells.

Tier 3 — occlusion and jaw-motion capture
4. US 4,836,778 (Baumrind) — mandibular motion monitoring; and US 5,340,309 (Robertson) — dental occlusion/articulation measurement. Relevant to the jaw-simulation/contact-data branch (claims 4, 8, 9, 14–18, 37).

Tier 4 — general CAD/CAM scan-to-custom-part background
5. US 4,936,862 (Walker, CT→custom prosthesis), US 5,273,429 (Rekow), US 5,587,912 / 5,607,305 (Andersson), US 5,342,202 (Deshayes), US 5,382,164 / 5,549,476 (Stern), US 3,860,803 (Levine). These support the "generate a computer representation / manufacture a custom article from scan data" concepts but contain no occlusal or aligner teaching.

Outliers/least relevant: US 5,017,133 (Miura, archwire), US 5,011,405 (Lemchen — see caution below), US 3,860,803, and US 5,645,421 (Slootsky) contribute little or nothing to the occlusion/aligner combination.

Caution (anti-conflation). US 5,011,405 (Lemchen) is a genuinely cited reference on the '807 patent — but it is unrelated to the separate Align v. Lemchen litigation (which involved other patents such as 5,011,405-family/6,398,548-era Align patents). Do not read the Lemchen litigation into this citation.

G. Do any cited references anticipate the claims? (My conclusion)

No single cited reference appears to anticipate granted claim 1 (or its apparatus/system twins 41, 44, 47). The cited art splits cleanly, and the split is exactly why the '807 family was allowed:

• Group A — computerized orthodontic appliance design (WO 94/10935 and the Andreiko U.S. family; Lemchen; Rekow): teaches scan → computer model → calculated finish tooth positions → custom brackets and archwires. It does not teach or suggest a plurality of polymeric shell appliances whose successive cavities have different geometries for progressive resilient repositioning.
• Group B — the positioner art (Breads, Abbatte, Yoshii, Dehoff; Kesling and the positioner NPL): teaches a polymeric shell/tooth-positioner with a teeth-receiving cavity, but not generating it from a computer representation via an occlusion determination, and generally a single positioner rather than an incremental series.

The specific elements most likely to have distinguished the '807 claims over this record are: (i) the serial set of shells with successively different cavity geometries (claim 1(e)); (ii) occlusion determined from the computer representation (claim 1(d), claims 2–19, 37); and (iii) the midtreatment re-scan → match → final-position-transform → re-optimize flow of claim 37 (claims 37–40). I found no cited reference that discloses (i) in combination with a computer-occlusion step, and none at all that discloses the claim 37 re-scan/transform flow.

The strongest individual §102 candidates on this record — and their limits:

• WO 94/10935 / US 5,683,243 (Andreiko, Ormco): the best candidate against claims 1(b)–(d), 4–9, and 37's "model → apply → optimize" sub-steps, and against the feature-correspondence claims (28–31). Cannot reach the shell-series limitation of claim 1(e) or the re-scan flow of claims 37–40.
• US 5,605,459 + Kuroda 1996: strongest against the "scanning on a physical model" limitation of claim 1 and the scanner element of claims 41/44/47, but silent on occlusion and on the shell series.
• US 5,035,613 / 5,055,039 / 5,059,118 / 5,186,623: strongest against the "polymeric shell having a teeth-receiving cavity" limitation, but silent on scanning, computer modeling, and occlusion.

A §102 rejection of claim 1 from any one of these would fail for want of the remaining elements. What the record could support is a §103 combination (e.g., Kuroda scanning + positioner shell art + Andreiko computer-design art) — but that is an obviousness question, not anticipation, and I have not seen the file wrapper to confirm what was actually argued.

H. What I could not verify (stated explicitly)

1. The file wrapper. I did not retrieve the '807 Image File Wrapper. I therefore cannot state which references the examiner applied against which specific claims, or the statutory ground (§102 vs. §103). The claim mapping in §C is my own; treat it as analysis, not record.
2. Exact titles/inventors for a minority of references — notably FR 2 369 828, US 4,755,139, US 4,856,991, US 5,338,198, US 5,340,309, US 5,382,164, US 5,452,219, US 5,645,421. I described these at the level the search results supported and marked them †. US 5,605,459 (Kuroda) and US 5,587,912 (Andersson) titles are given at a descriptive rather than verbatim level.
3. No post-grant proceeding. Consistent with the prior summary, no IPR/PGR/reexam on 6,450,807 surfaced (unsurprising given the Oct. 8, 2017 expiration). I cannot certify a true null result.
4. Search scope. These are general web results (Google Patents, Justia, PubChem, PTAB exhibits, patentimages PDFs), not direct USPTO PatentCenter/docket queries. Where a citation list appeared in a different patent's document (e.g., US 10,806,547; US 10,548,700), I used it only to corroborate titles/dates of references that are already on the '807 face list, and I did not import references that appear only in those other patents.

Bottom line: the prior art of record for US 6,450,807 is a 1997-era cross-section of (A) Ormco/Andreiko computerized custom-appliance design, (B) polymeric tooth-positioner art, and (C) dental-scan/occlusion instrumentation. WO 94/10935 (and its US 5,683,243 counterpart) and US 5,605,459 are the two most substantively relevant cited documents, but none of the cited references appears to anticipate claim 1 as granted, because none combines physical-model scanning, computer occlusion determination, and a series of polymeric shells having successively different cavity geometries.

I'll pull the actual prior-art references cited on the face of the '807 patent so the § 103 analysis is grounded in the references of record rather than in the "Cited By" list (which is forward-citation, not prior art).

Let me retrieve the remainder of the "Patent Citations" list of record and the non-patent literature cited, so the combinations I propose are anchored in the references actually before the examiner.

Let me try to obtain the "References Cited" list specific to the '807 patent itself, plus the non-patent literature of record.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 6,450,807 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Scope, sources, and an important caveat about "the Prior Art section"

What the fetched page actually contains. The Google Patents page for US 6,450,807 does not include a "Patent Citations" (backward-citation) block in the retrieved text. Its prior-art-related content is limited to:

1. "Prior art keywords": teeth, tooth, patient, model, occlusion — these are algorithmically extracted terms, not a legal prior-art listing; and
2. "Cited By (316)" — a forward-citation list.

Legal caution: forward citations are, by definition, later-published documents and are not § 102 prior art against the '807 patent. Two entries in that list — US 2006/0286501 A1 and US 2008/0182220 A1 ("Computer automated development of an orthodontic treatment plan and appliance") — carry a 1997-06-20 priority date, i.e., they are Align's own family members, not third-party art; a third, US 2013/0085721 A1, claims 1998-10-08. Nothing in the "Cited By" list is usable as § 103 art against the '807.

What I therefore used. To give you a grounded analysis I supplemented the page with the "Patent Citations (44)" list appearing on the Google Patents page for US 6,786,721 (application 10/133,155), which is a same-specification, same-inventor, same-priority continuation of 09/169,036 and confirms the '807 as its parent. I also used the references the '807 specification itself discusses and incorporates by reference.

⚠️ Flag — sourcing limitation. I could not independently retrieve the '807's own IDS/"References Cited" block in the searches I ran. Treat the reference list below as highly likely co-extensive with, but not certified identical to, the '807's IDS. Any item whose presence on the '807 face is material to your conclusion should be confirmed against the '807's USPTO PatentCenter file wrapper.

1. Governing law and the critical date problem

Pre-AIA § 103 applies. The '807 was filed October 8, 1998 and claims priority to provisional 60/050,342 (June 20, 1997), a CIP of 08/947,080 (Oct. 8, 1997, now US 5,975,893), and a continuation of PCT/US98/12861 (June 19, 1998). Because it has no post-AIA effective date, the analysis proceeds under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as construed in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).

1.1 The priority-date exposure (this is the single biggest § 103 lever)

Claim 1's distinguishing limitations — (a) "scanning a patient's teeth on a physical model thereof, to obtain data" and (e) "generating a plurality of appliances… wherein the cavities of successive shells have different geometries shaped to receive and resiliently reposition teeth from one arrangement to a successive arrangement" — are precisely the subject matter added in the 1998 CIP relative to the 1997 disclosure lineage.

• If those limitations find § 112 ¶ 1 support in the June 20, 1997 provisional, the critical date is June 20, 1997.
• If they do not (and the title/spec lineage suggests the appliance-series concept traces to the 08/947,080 / WO 98/58596 line rather than the provisional), the effective filing date for claim 1 shifts to October 8, 1998.

Consequence: on the later date, the following intervening filings become available as § 102(e) art:

⚠️ Flag: I could not verify from the available materials whether the '807's provisional supports the scanning/appliance-series limitations. This is a written-description/priority question requiring the file wrapper and the provisional text, and I state it as a hypothesis to be tested, not as a finding.

2. Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

The '807's own specification (FIG. 7 / col. discussion of data-processing system 500, scanner 520, fabrication machine 522) contemplates a team implementation. A POSITA is therefore a person with (i) a graduate degree in orthodontics or several years of clinical orthodontic practice, in combination with (ii) working familiarity with 3D dental scanning (laser/CT/mechanical digitization), computer graphics modeling of dental casts, and CAD/CAM manufacture. This is a combination-inventor art, which broadens the pool of analogous references and lowers the barrier to combining clinical orthodontic techniques with available computer-graphics tooling.

3. The prior-art corpus of record (grouped for combination purposes)

Group A — Digital representation & scanning of teeth

Group B — Elastomeric / shell positioners and their manufacture

Group C — Occlusion, articulation, and jaw-motion measurement

⚠️ Flag: The Group C non-patent literature (Kunii, Andrews, Biggerstaff, Sakaguchi, Hayashi, Begole, Rekow, Kuroda) appears in Align-family IDS lists. I could not confirm each item was individually cited in the '807's own IDS; several were retrieved from IDS lists of other Align patents (e.g., US 7,716,024; US 9,707,054). Confirm against the '807 file wrapper before relying on any one of them as "of record."

4. Combinations that render the claims obvious

Combination A — Claim 1 (and claims 41, 44, 47 mirroring it)

Motivation to combine (KSR rationales A, C, D, F):

1. Same field, same problem. Every reference is in orthodontics or restorative dentistry and addresses a common objective the '807 itself states: "a fundamental objective in orthodontics is to realign a patient's teeth to positions where the teeth function optimally and aesthetically." Where references are drawn from the same field and address the same problem, the suggestion to combine is implicit. In re Keller; In re Merck.
2. Use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way (KSR rationale C). The Group B positioner art already taught that a mold made from a physical model of the teeth produces a shell whose cavity corresponds to a target tooth arrangement. Once Group A digitizes that physical model, generating the mold directly from the digital model is the predictable substitution of a known manufacturing input for a known one.
3. Design incentive / market force (KSR rationale F). The '807's own background recites the well-known drawbacks of fixed braces — "tedious and painful," "time consuming and expensive," with "uncertainties in determining a final arrangement for each tooth." That recitation is itself an articulated design incentive to (i) replace wires/brackets with removable shells and (ii) remove the "uncertainty" by computing the final arrangement digitally.
4. The "series" limitation. Producing an appliance per incremental stage rather than a single finishing positioner is a predictable variation (KSR rationale B) — the Great Lakes finishing-positioner family already concerns reaching a finishing arrangement from a malocclusion, and the Suyehiro/Yoshii references already teach molding a device whose geometry corresponds to a desired arrangement. Moving from one shell to N shells of differing cavity geometry follows directly from the goal of incrementally repositioning teeth recited in the '807's own "Definitions"/background section.

Assessment: Combination A makes out a prima facie case, with a material caveat — the "plurality of shells with successively different cavity geometries" element is where the art of record is thinnest, because the Group B references are largely single-positioner or finishing-positioner references. The evidence is strongest if the priority date shifts to Oct 8, 1998, which brings in US 6,152,731 (3M/Cadent, filed 1997-09-22) and Cadent's IL 122807 virtual-orthodontic-treatment filing.

Combination B — Claims 4–9 and 14–19 (registration + jaw-motion simulation + contact-based placement)

Primary: US 5,800,174 (Nobel Biocare — "Method using an articulator and computer to represent an individual's bite"), which already merges an articulator (the classic dental device for simulating jaw movement) with a computer representation of an individual's bite.

Secondary: US 4,836,778 (Vexcel — mandibular motion monitoring); Kunii et al. (1994) (articulation simulation); Sakaguchi (1994) and Hayashi (1994) (digitized occlusal contact analysis during mandibular movement); Biggerstaff (1970/72) (computerized occlusion analysis).

Motivation (KSR rationale C, plus explicit TSM). The specification itself concedes that jaw registration "may be done using conventional techniques such as X-ray, a computer tomography, or a mechanical device such as a face bow transfer." That concession is close to an admission that the registration step was known. Given a digital model whose purpose is to test a proposed final arrangement, a POSITA would self-evidently want to check dynamic occlusion, not merely static interdigitation; the articulator is the standard tool for that check (US 5,800,174), and digitizing a known mechanical procedure is a predictable and beneficial automation.

Assessment: Strong. The claim-4 combination is the most defensible obviousness theory in the record, because US 5,800,174 supplies both halves of the equation (articulator and computer) in a single reference, and the '807 specification effectively concedes the registration techniques to be conventional.

Combination C — Claims 20–27 and 32–36 (indices, optimality index, minimization, search heuristics)

Primary: the PAR (Peer Assessment Rating) index as a known clinical instrument for scoring malocclusion. The '807 specification recites PAR in detail — "The eleven components of the PAR Index are: upper right segment; upper anterior segment; upper left segment; lower right segment; lower anterior segment; lower left segment; right buccal occlusion; overjet; overbite; centerline; and left buccal occlusion" — and notes "a score of zero would indicate good alignment." A reference that the applicant reproduces in that level of operational detail is strong evidence the index pre-existed the invention.

Secondary: standard numeric optimization — simulated annealing, hill climbing, best-first, and Powell's method (claims 21, 32) — are textbook algorithms (e.g., the Numerical Recipes family and the operations-research literature predating 1997).

Motivation (KSR rationales A, C, E). Once a numeric malocclusion score (PAR) and a digital tooth model exist, applying a known optimization algorithm to minimize a known clinical score is the epitome of "applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement" (KSR rationale C/D). The '807 itself frames the exercise as pure minimization: "the best result is the result that minimizes one or more metrics." A POSITA implementing that in the mid-1990s had simulated annealing and hill climbing at hand.

Assessment: Very strong on claims 21 and 32–36; strong on 20 and 22–27. The only realistic rebuttal is the "automation does not confer patentability" point cutting the other way — that the combination of a dental index with a generic optimizer yields no more than predictable results. That argument favors obviousness.

Combination D — Claims 28–31 and 38–39 (feature/cusp/fossa/ridge correspondence)

Primary: US 5,368,478 and US 5,395,238 (Andreiko / Dental Imaging Technologies), which operate on digital dental models and place appliances relative to tooth surface landmarks; US 4,837,732 (3D registration/display of prepared teeth); and general CAD/CAM dental feature-based registration (Rekow 1987).

Motivation. Feature-based registration (matching cusps, fossae, ridges between models) is a routine image-processing/CAD technique for aligning two representations of the same object. The '807's own cusp-detection description — island identification via local maxima, plane-lowering, and a flood fill — is described in the language of ordinary surface-geometry processing, not of a novel orthodontic discovery.

Assessment: Strong. Claims 28–31 recite the use of correspondences, not a novel algorithm; the flood-fill/curvature-rejection detail is only in the specification, not the claims. Claims that recite a known alignment technique applied to a known model are vulnerable.

Combination E — Claims 37–40 (ideal model; mid-treatment re-scan, matching, final-position transform, new prescription)

Motivation (KSR rationale D/F). The '807 specification's own framing of FIG. 6 supplies the motivation verbatim: "a slight change in the model, a change in the X-ray scan, or a change the prescription." A POSITA monitoring an orthodontic case would obviously re-scan and re-register, because the entire premise of the invention is that the final arrangement can be recomputed. Applying a "final position transform" — i.e., transferring the previously-determined final arrangement onto the newly-scanned model — is the straightforward engineering response.

Assessment: Moderate to strong, with the strongest attack on claims 38–40 and the weakest on the specific "final position transform" construct in claim 37(c), which is closer to an implementation choice than to a technical contribution.

Combination F — Claims 42–48 (apparatus / system / means-plus-function forms)

Motivation. Under § 103, apparatus claims covering the same functionality as obvious method claims are a fortiori obvious where the hardware is conventional. FIG. 7's processor 502, storage subsystem 506, display, scanner 520, and fabrication machine 522 are, on the patent's own description, ordinary computer components ("Data processing system 500 may include a terminal or a low-end personal computer or a high-end personal computer, workstation or mainframe"). Combining:

• US 5,027,281 / US 5,121,333 (scanner + model manipulation), with
• US 5,800,174 (computer + articulator for bite representation), and
• the Group B appliance-manufacturing references,

yields every structural element of claims 41, 44, 47 and 48. Means-plus-function claims 45, 46 and 48 are particularly exposed because their recited "means" are all disclosed in the prior art and their scope under § 112 ¶ 6 is limited to those conventional structures.

5. Why a POSITA would have combined these references — consolidated statement

6. Counterarguments and secondary considerations

Points that cut against a clean § 103 conclusion — state these honestly:

1. The Patent Office allowed these claims. Under the art of record as I have it, claim 1 nonetheless issued. Possible explanations: (i) the "plurality of polymeric shells with successively different cavity geometries" limitation was not met by any single positioner reference and no combination motivation was documented by the examiner; (ii) the applicant may have submitted an IDS under § 1.56 that overlapped heavily with the claims (the Kunii, Andrews and Biggerstaff material), and the examiner nonetheless allowed; (iii) the examiner may have treated the digital-model-based series generation as a unitary concept not suggested by the art.
2. No prima facie articulation of the "series" motivation appears in the record I have. A § 103 rejection on claim 1 must explain why a POSITA would go from a single positioner (the Group B art) to a series of shells. The best available motivation is the incremental-repositioning goal stated in the '807's own background — which is applicant-supplied, but also an admission of the problem.
3. Potential secondary considerations — commercial success (Invisalign), industry acclaim, licensing, and the fact that OrthoClear and others copied — are the obvious rebuttal evidence. I have no record evidence of these in the materials reviewed (the litigation history described in the previously-generated sections is about enforcement, not about secondary-consideration evidence), so I flag this as an evidentiary gap rather than a conclusion.
4. Same-family double-patenting. Several of the references that would most cleanly defeat the '807 — US 5,975,893 (the parent), US 6,471,511, and the WO 98/58596 line — are the applicant's own same-family filings and are therefore not § 102/§ 103 prior art. A validity attack that reaches for them is really an obviousness-type double patenting attack, or a § 112 written-description attack on the priority claim, not a § 103 attack. This distinction matters a great deal and is easy to get wrong.

7. Bottom line

Overall: the dependent claims — particularly the optimization/index claims (20–27, 32–36) and the functional-occlusion claims (4–9, 14–19) — are the most vulnerable under § 103, because they recite known clinical instruments and textbook algorithms applied to a known digital model. Independent claim 1 is the most defensible, and its defensibility turns almost entirely on (i) whether the claimed plurality of successively-different shell geometries was suggested by the positioner art, and (ii) the priority-date question, which is the highest-leverage issue in the whole analysis.

8. Uncertainties I am not able to resolve from the materials provided

1. The '807's actual IDS. I reconstructed the cited-art list from the same-specification continuation US 6,786,721, not from the '807 face. Items marked with "⚠️" above need file-wrapper confirmation.
2. The Group C non-patent literature. Kunii, Andrews, Biggerstaff, Sakaguchi, Hayashi, Begole, Rekow and Kuroda appear in Align-family IDS lists; I could not confirm each individually appears in the '807's IDS.
3. Priority/written-description support for claim 1's scanning and appliance-series limitations in provisional 60/050,342 — a § 112 ¶ 1 question requiring the provisional text.
4. Live litigation or IPR art. Per the previously-generated sections, no live 2026 proceeding involving the '807 was located, and the patent is Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration Oct. 8, 2017) — which means any § 103 challenge today would arise in a context other than infringement litigation (e.g., a validity opinion, or a collateral proceeding). I found no IPR/PGR/reexam record for the '807 in my searches.
5. The "Cited By" list is not prior art. I note again that the forward citations on the fetched page — including the two 1997-priority Align entries, US 2006/0286501 A1 and US 2008/0182220 A1 — cannot be used in a § 103 rejection against the '807.