Digital Dentistry Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing peaked in 2021 at 20 families and has since declined toward the 2022 midpoint of 6, suggesting the initial claim rush around intraoral scanning and CAD/CAM milling has already happened.
- A61C dominates every record but a meaningful secondary cluster sits in A61B (48 of 88), meaning scan-and-diagnose workflows are as contested as the milling and modeling claims themselves.
- The 2015 landmark family, US20090298017A1, still carries 315 citations far ahead of anything filed since, a sign that foundational digital-dentistry claims were staked out early and later filings work around them.
What this landscape covers
Digital dentistry and CAD/CAM patenting spans the full chairside-to-lab pipeline: intraoral scanning to capture a patient’s dentition, 3D modeling and image processing to turn that scan into a workable digital object, and milling or 3D-printing workflows that turn the model into a crown, aligner or appliance. This dataset pulls 88 patent families published between 2015 and the 2026 cut-off, filtered to records that combine dentistry-specific IPC classes (A61C, A61C9) with digital-processing classes (G06F30) and title/abstract language around scan accuracy, milling, clear aligners, 3D-printed dental parts and workflow integration.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 figures in any trend line understate actual filing activity for those years; the decline visible from the 2021 peak is directionally real but the most recent two years should be read as a floor, not a final count.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 88 families: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
A 2021 peak followed by a pullback
Filings rose from 2 families in 2017 to a peak of 20 in 2021, then fell back toward 6 by the 2022 midpoint. That shape is more consistent with an initial land-grab around intraoral scanning and CAD/CAM workflow claims than with a technology still in its early growth phase — later filers are working in a more crowded claim space than the raw family count suggests.
A61C anchors the set; A61B is the real secondary contest
Every one of the 88 families touches A61C (dentistry and oral hygiene), as expected from the search definition. The next-largest bucket is A61B (diagnosis and surgery) at 48, well ahead of G06T image processing (14) and G06F digital processing (13). That gap matters for filing strategy: scan-to-diagnosis claims overlap dentistry and general medical-device classification, so a freedom-to-operate search limited to A61C alone will miss a substantial share of the relevant prior art.
Shares are the percentage of the 88 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Digital Dentistry and CAD/CAM with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about digital dentistry and cad/cam and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records other filings cite most
Intraoral scanner system with a correction feedback signal (US20250072740A1, 3Shape A/S)
The system pairs a handheld intraoral scanner with a graphical user interface that displays a digital 3D model of the scanned dental object in real time, including a field-of-view indicator intended to guide the operator's scanning motion. The processing chain runs from captured light information through 3D model generation to a live correction feedback signal shown during the scan itself.Abstract text is drawn directly from the published filing; bracketed numerals are original figure-reference labels.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20090298017A1 | Digital dentistry | 315 |
| 2 | US20160051345A1 | Viewfinder with real-time tracking for intraoral scanning | 125 |
| 3 | US9724177B2 | Viewfinder with real-time tracking for intraoral scanning | 96 |
| 4 | US20160051348A1 | Digital dentistry | 56 |
| 5 | WO2009094576A1 | Haptically enabled dental modeling system | 53 |
| 6 | US8535580B2 | Digitally forming a dental model for fabricating orthodontic laboratory appliances | 49 |
| 7 | US9208531B2 | Digital dentistry | 35 |
| 8 | WO2009042378A1 | Digitally forming a dental model for fabricating orthodontic laboratory appliances | 35 |
| 9 | WO2021087549A1 | Apparatus for facilitating acquisition of a scan and an intraoral scanning procedure | 15 |
| 10 | US20210212806A1 | Cap, image capturing device, data generation system, and data generation method | 13 |
Citation counts are drawn from the searched corpus only and skew toward older filings; treat them as a measure of influence within this dataset, not of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three patterns in this dataset are worth weighing before drafting new claims or scoping a freedom-to-operate review in this space.
The rush has already happened
Filing activity climbed steadily from 2 families in 2017 to 20 in 2021, then dropped sharply. A new entrant filing today is not entering a greenfield technology — they are filing into a space where the core scanning and milling claims were staked out during 2019-2021.
Scan-to-diagnosis claims cross two art areas
More than half of the families in this set carry an A61B diagnosis-and-surgery classification alongside A61C. Claims that combine scanning with diagnostic output — not just modeling and milling — sit in a denser, cross-disciplinary prior art field than a dentistry-only search would surface.
One 2015-era family still anchors the field
The most-cited record in this landscape outpaces the next by more than double, and the top handful of cited records cluster around early intraoral-scanner viewfinder and haptic-modeling concepts. New filings in scan-tracking or real-time feedback are almost certainly filing in the shadow of this family's claims.
Filing is concentrated in two jurisdictions
The United States and the European Patent Office account for the large majority of receiving-office activity, with WIPO PCT, Australia and India each in single digits. A clearance search that stops at the USPTO and EPO will catch most of the documented activity but will miss the smaller India and Australia filings that sometimes carry jurisdiction-specific claim scope.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to digital dentistry and cad/cam, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
Ranking tables elsewhere on this page show the leading assignees by family count; the pattern behind those numbers is a concentrated set of scanner and aligner specialists alongside a long tail of single- or double-filing entrants, several of which show no filings in the latest tracked year.
Collaboration is limited and mostly corporate-internal
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear across 88 families, and the strongest pair links an equipment maker with a named engineering firm. Most families in this set are filed by a single assignee rather than through joint development arrangements, which is typical of a field where core IP still sits with instrument makers rather than being co-developed with dental labs or software partners.
Several historically active filers have gone quiet
A number of assignees with meaningful filing history in this dataset show zero families in the most recent tracked year, including one with a -100% year-on-year change. Given publication lag, some of this is timing rather than a genuine pullback, but it is still worth checking whether a competitor has shifted its IP strategy toward trade secret or design-around filing.
Filing is broad but not evenly deep
The 88 families spread across eight IPC subclasses, from core dentistry (A61C) down to single-digit counts in G01S positioning and G02B optics. That long thin tail is where claim density is lowest and where a well-drafted application has the most room to establish original coverage rather than narrow around existing claims.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Align Technology, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Dental Implant Solutions Corp. | 0 | — |
| CROCKETT RUSSELL J | 0 | — |
| 3M Innovative Properties Company (USA) | 0 | — |
| Morita Manufacturing Corporation | 0 | — |
| 3Shape A/S | 0 | — |
| Sensable Technologies, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Osstem Implant Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The landscape data points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is drafting, clearance or competitive tracking.
Draft around the 2015 anchor family
US20090298017A1 and its 2016 siblings carry the heaviest citation weight in this set. Any new filing touching scanner viewfinders or real-time tracking should be checked against this family's claim scope before drafting.
Explore citation trees in EurekaWiden clearance searches past A61C
With 48 of 88 families also classed under A61B, a dentistry-only prior art search understates the real risk. Cross-check scan-and-diagnose claims against the broader diagnostic-device art.
Run a cross-class search in EurekaWatch the quiet assignees
Several assignees with prior filing history show no activity in the latest tracked year. Confirm whether that reflects publication lag or a genuine strategic shift before assuming the field has gone still.
Track assignee activity in EurekaCommon questions on digital dentistry patents
The most-cited record in this landscape, US20090298017A1 ("Digital dentistry"), dates to the mid-2010s publication window and has accumulated 315 citations within this corpus, well ahead of any later filing. A cluster of related viewfinder and real-time tracking claims, including US20160051345A1 and US9724177B2, sit close behind it. These early families effectively set the baseline claim scope that most later intraoral scanner filings, including recent ones like 3Shape's US20250072740A1, have to work around rather than duplicate.
Not on the evidence in this dataset. Filing rose from 2 families in 2017 to a peak of 20 in 2021, then fell back to 6 by the 2022 midpoint, and several previously active assignees show zero filings in the most recent tracked year. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the very latest years will revise upward somewhat, but the decline from the 2021 peak predates that lag and looks like a genuine slowdown in new claim activity rather than a data artifact.
A61C (dentistry and oral hygiene) is the anchor class and appears in all 88 families in this set, but it is not sufficient on its own. Forty-eight of the 88 families are also classified under A61B (diagnosis and surgery), and smaller but meaningful counts sit in G06T image processing, G06F digital processing, and G01B measurement. A search restricted to A61C alone would miss more than half the relevant art in this landscape, particularly anything combining scanning with diagnostic output.
The thinnest documented subclasses in this dataset are G01S (positioning and radar-assisted registration) and G02B (optical element design for handheld scanners), each with only 4 records against 88 total families. Real-time scan-tracking feedback and haptic-enabled modeling also show comparatively light coverage relative to core milling and modeling claims. These branches are candidates for original claim drafting precisely because filing density there is low, not because the underlying technical problems are unsolved.
The assignee ranking on this page shows filing concentrated among a small number of scanner and clear-aligner specialists, with a long tail of entrants holding one or two families each. Several assignees with prior filing history, however, show no families published in the most recent tracked year, some with a -100% year-on-year change, which may reflect either a genuine pullback or simply publication lag on very recent applications not yet visible in the data.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.