3M Innovative Properties, St. Paul, Minn, has been assigned a patent (8,257,080) from the US Patent and Trademark Office for a low-profile orthodontic bite corrector developed by orthodontist Dirk Wiechmann, DDS, of Bad Essen, Germany.
According to the patient abstract, the bite corrector is “for moving the relative positions of the jaws” and includes “a telescoping assembly with an outer member and an inner member received in the outer member.” The outer and inner members have matching, curved configurations and remain in “close proximity to the patient’s dentition during opening and closing movement of the jaws.” This reduces the likelihood of the bite corrector coming into contact with the patient’s adjacent oral cavity tissue, according to the patent abstract.
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