A federal judge ruled against 3Shape in its suit against Align Technology. 3Shape alleged in its complaint filed last year that Align implemented a multistep anti-competitive strategy to take over the clear aligner market. 

U.S. District Judge Leonard P. Stark in Delaware signed off on a judge’s recommendation that found that 3Shape has not shown that Align acted anti-competitively when it filed patent suits against 3Shape or other intraoral scanner companies or when it terminated Invisalign interoperability with the 3Shape TRIOS intraoral scanner in early 2018. 

The judge said that “3Shape’s answering brief did not identify any antitrust law doctrine that supports this conclusion.”

The judge gave 3Shape a month to amend its complaint, despite Align’s opposition.