DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Objections
Claim 2 is objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 2 recites “jaw placements is great than a threshold” which appears to mean “jaw placements is greater than a threshold”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite abstract steps of determining and designing that may all be performed in the mind. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because no steps are provided for integrating into a practical application and the claimed invention does not provide an improvement in the functioning of a computer, or an improvement to other technology or a technical field. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because no additional elements are provided. The parent applications positively recited a scanning step to acquire the model of a jaw, which would obviate this rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-12, 14-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Lotte (US 2003/0207224).
Lotte shows a method of providing a dental treatment plan comprising identifying a misaligned jaw of a patient from a model of a jaw of a patient ([0033]-[0034] show acquiring/identifying the virtual image that requires a treatment plan for misalignment); identifying a plurality of jaw placements of the model of the jaw of the patient to reposition the jaws of the patient from a misaligned jaw position towards a corrected jaw position ([0049] discusses dividing into a plurality of jaw placements); determining tooth movement treatment stages to move teeth of the patient from an initial position towards a target position ([0035] discusses incremental movement of the teeth); determining, for each of the plurality of jaw placements, a corresponding plurality of the tooth movement treatment stages ([0035] discusses combining intra-arch tooth movement during inter-arch bite correction); designing a plurality of dental appliances for repositioning the jaws of the patient from the misaligned jaw position towards the corrected jaw position ([0049]) by: determining, for each of the jaw placements, a position and orientation of repositioning jaw elements for each of the corresponding plurality of the tooth movement treatment stages (“provided with wedges at incrementally different locations”; [0049]); positioning the repositioning jaw elements on dental appliances at the determined position and orientation for each of the corresponding plurality of treatment stages (Fig. 1A for instance shows the repositioning jaw elements in place on the aligner). With respect to claim 2, wherein a distance between a first and a second of the plurality of jaw placements is greater than a threshold jaw movement ([0049] discusses possible bite correction increments that may be considered the threshold). With respect to claim 3, wherein the threshold jaw movement is 2 mm or 3 mm ([0049] discusses at least 1 mm of additional bite correction to the previous correction and therefore overlaps this range). With respect to claim 4, wherein a distance between a first and second of the plurality of jaw placements is 3 mm or 4 mm ([0049] discusses at least 1 mm of additional bite correction to the previous correction and therefore overlaps this range). With respect to claim 5, wherein the corresponding plurality of the tooth movement treatment stages for each of the plurality of jaw placements is a range of tooth movement treatment stages, the range of tooth movement treatment stages being three stages, eight stages, or twelve stages ([0016] discusses the number of bite positioner wedge positions for achieving the bite correction may be as low as a singular stage, upon which the plurality of tooth positioning stages at these low stages will be greater and overlap the claimed range; [0035] provides an example of 1 to 40 steps for tooth movement, which would be divided by the jaw placement stages of one or two). With respect to claim 6, wherein the plurality of jaw placements includes two placements or three placements ([0016] discusses the number of bite positioner wedge positions for achieving the bite correction may be as low as a singular stage and therefore overlaps this range). With respect to claim 7, wherein the corresponding plurality of the tooth movement treatment stages for each of the plurality of jaw placements is a range of tooth movement treatment stages and each of the plurality of jaw placements is different for each of the range of tooth movement treatment stages (as cited above, the number of tooth movement treatment stages will be divided by the jaw placement stages during concurrent treatment). With respect to claim 8, wherein each of the plurality of the corresponding plurality of the tooth movement treatment stages is a predetermined period of time ([0049] discusses two to three weeks for each appliance). With respect to claim 9, wherein the predetermined period of time is two weeks ([0049] as cited above). With respect to claim 10, further comprising determining a degree of jaw alignment utilizing a virtual image of the patient’s jaw (“digital dental set” in [0015] for instance). With respect to claim 11, wherein designing a plurality of dental appliances further comprises designing a series of dental appliances to reposition jaw with the plurality of jaw placements over six months or eight months ([0031] establishes .2 mm to .8 mm of bite correction per month and therefore a patient requiring 1.2 to 4.8 mm of bite correction will be six months to 8 months). With respect to claim 12, wherein the dental appliances reposition the teeth of the patient in parallel with jaw repositioning ([0035] discusses combining intra-arch tooth movement during inter-arch bite correction). With respect to claim 14, wherein the repositioning jaw elements are occlusal repositioning jaw elements (Fig. 5K for instance). With respect to claim 15, wherein the repositioning jaw elements are positioned on buccal surfaces of the dental appliances (Fig. 1B for instance).
Non-transitory computing device readable medium claims 16-20 are rejected similarly to the above and it is noted that Lotte is cited to perform the steps digitally)
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lotte.
Lotte discloses the device as previously described above and shows concurrent treatment of bite and tooth position ([0035]), holding the bite constant while tooth position is altered ([0016]), and holding the tooth position constant while bite is altered ([0016]), but fails to show explicitly that wherein designing a plurality of dental appliances further comprises designing a series of dental appliances that reposition the teeth of the patient subsequent to jaw repositioning the jaw with the plurality of jaw placements. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify/design Lotte to perform the jaw/bite alignment and then the tooth positioning as this would have been obvious to try. A finite number of identified, predictable solutions consist of concurrent treatment, or one before the other. A reasonable expectation of success is present since Lotte already discloses tooth movement while bite is held constant, and that a bite may be altered without tooth movement (both described in [0016]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW NELSON whose telephone number is (571)270-5898. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 7:30am-5:00pm EDT.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, please contact the examiner’s supervisor, Eric Rosen, at (571) 270-7855. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MATTHEW M NELSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3772