Dental Monitoring Sas v. Align Technology, Inc.

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
DENTAL MONITORING SAS,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
ALIGN TECHNOLOGY, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2024-2270
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of California in No. 3:22-cv-07335-WHA,
Judge William H. Alsup.
______________________
Decided: July 7, 2026
______________________
M ARK ANDREW PERRY, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP,
Washington, DC, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also
represented by ADAM W. M ITCHELL, CAROLINE VOELKER;
ROCCO JOSEPH R ECCE , New York, NY.
D AN L. BAGATELL, Perkins Coie LLP, Hanover, NH,
argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented by
K AITLIN D RYDEN , Madison, WI; JOHN H. G RAY, Phoenix,
AZ; H ARI SANTHANAM , Chicago, IL.
______________________
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 2
Before LOURIE, SCHALL, and TARANTO , Circuit Judges.
LOURIE, Circuit Judge.
Dental Monitoring SAS (“Dental Monitoring”) appeals
from a final decision of the United States District Court for
the Northern District of California granting summary
judgment that claims 1 and 14 of U.S. Patent 11,049,248
(“the ’248 patent”) and claims 1, 7, and 12 of U.S. Patent
10,755,409 (“the ’409 patent”) are directed to ineligible
subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and hence invalid.
Dental Monitoring SAS v. Align Tech., Inc., No. C 22-
07335 WHA, 2024 WL 2261931 (N.D. Cal. May 16, 2024)
(“Decision”); J.A. 18. For the following reasons, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Dental Monitoring is the owner of the ’248 and ’409
patents, which relate to the field of dental arch image
analysis. ’248 pat., col. 1 ll. 6–7; ’409 pat., col. 1 ll. 6–7. The
’248 patent is directed to a method for assessing the shape
of an orthodontic aligner using a “deep learning device.”
’248 pat., Abstract. The ’409 patent is directed to a method
for acquiring an image of a dental arch and analyzing it
using a “deep learning device.” ’409 pat., Abstract.
Orthodontic aligners are used to reposition a patient’s
teeth via an iteration of several aligners that gradually
move the teeth from a starting to final dentition. Decision,
2024 WL 2261931, at *1. That process is typically done
with periodic visual assessments by a dental practitioner
to evaluate progress and determine whether to move to the
next aligner. Id. A “deep learning device” is a machine
learning device that, through training, can analyze images
and recognize patterns within the images. ’248 pat., col. 16
ll. 46–48; ’409 pat., col. 16 ll. 53–55.
In November 2022, Dental Monitoring sued Align
Technology, Inc. (“Align”) for infringement of claims of both
the ’248 and ’409 patents, as well as a third patent not at
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 3
issue here.1 J.A. 107–126. Dental Monitoring alleged that
Align’s Invisalign Virtual Care AI platform and related
apparatuses, which are accessories to its “Invisalign”
dental aligner products, infringed claims of the ’409 and
’248 patents. J.A. 117–126.
In July 2023, the district court set the stage for a
“patent showdown.” J.A. 241–43. The parties were
required to each select one claim, undergo discovery, and
then file cross-motions for summary judgment. See id.
Dental Monitoring selected claim 14 (which depends from
claim 1) of the ’248 patent and Align selected claim 12
(which depends from claim 1) of the ’409 patent
(collectively, “the showdown claims”). Decision, 2024 WL
2261931, at *1–2; J.A. 17. The parties stipulated that the
court’s decision regarding the showdown claims would
apply also to claim 1 of the ’248 patent and claims 1 and 7
of the ’409 patent. See J.A. 18; J.A. 22–23.
The relevant claims of the ’248 patent recite:
1. A method for assessing the shape of an
orthodontic aligner, said method comprising the
following steps:
a) more than 1 week after the start of the
treatment with the aligner, acquisition of
at least one image at least partially
representing the aligner in a service
position in which it is worn by a patient,
called “analysis image”, the analysis image
being a photograph, or an image extracted
from a film;
1 This case is one of three before us regarding the
same set of patents and the same parties. See Dental Mon-
itoring SAS v. Align Tech., Inc., 2025-1752; Dental Moni-
toring SAS v. Align Tech., Inc., 2025-1879.
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 4
b) analysis of the analysis image by means
of a deep learning device, trained by means
of a learning base, so as to determine a
value
for at least one tooth attribute of an
“analysis tooth zone” representing, at least
partially, a tooth on said analysis image,
the tooth attribute relating to a separation
between the tooth represented by the
analysis tooth zone, and the aligner
represented on the analysis image,
in the step a), a cellphone is used to acquire
the analysis image.
14. The method as claimed in claim 1, in which the
step b) comprises the following steps:
1) creation of a learning base comprising
more than 1000 images of dental arches, or
“historical images”, each historical image
representing an aligner worn by a
“historical” patient and comprising one or
more zones each representing a tooth, or
“historical tooth zones”, to each of which,
for at least one tooth attribute relating to a
separation between the tooth represented
by the historical tooth zone considered, and
the aligner represented, a tooth attribute
value is assigned;
2) training of at least one deep learning
device, by means of the learning base;
3) submission of the analysis image to the
deep learning device for it to determine at
least one probability relating to:
the presence, in a location of said analysis
image, of an analysis tooth zone; and
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 5
the attribute value of the tooth represented
on said analysis tooth zone;
4) determination, as a function of said
probability, of an amplitude of said
separation.
’248 pat., col. 32 ll. 6–23; id. at col. 34 ll. 21–42. The
relevant claims of the ’409 patent recite:
1. A method for acquiring an image of a dental arch
of a patient, said method comprising the following
steps:
a) activation of an image acquisition
apparatus so as to acquire an image, called
“analysis image”, of said arch;
b) analysis of the analysis image by means
of a deep learning device trained by means
of a learning base;
c) determination, for the analysis image, as
a function of the results of the analysis in
the preceding step, of a value for an image
attribute;
d) comparison of said image attribute value
with a setpoint;
e) sending of an information message as a
function of said comparison, the
information message being related to the
quality of the image acquired or to the
position of the acquisition apparatus in
relation to said arch or to the setting of the
acquisition apparatus or to the opening of
the mouth or to the wearing of a dental
appliance, or to a combination thereof,
to check whether the analysis image respects the
setpoint and, if it does not respect the setpoint, to
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 6
guide the operator in order for him or her to acquire
a new analysis image.
7. The method as claimed in claim 1, in which the
step b) comprises the following steps:
1) creation of a learning base comprising
more than 1000 images of dental arches, or
“historical images”, each historical image
comprising an attribute value for at least
one image attribute, or “image attribute
value”;
2) training of at least one deep learning
device by means of the learning base;
3) submission of the analysis image to the
deep learning device for it to determine, for
said analysis image, at least one
probability relating to said image attribute
value.
12. The method as claimed in claim 1, in which the
information message is sent by the acquisition
apparatus.
’409 pat., col. 32 ll. 13–33; id. at col. 33 ll. 10–21; id. at col.
34 ll. 34–35.
In January 2024, the parties filed cross-motions for
summary judgment. J.A. 97; see J.A. 263; J.A. 429. Dental
Monitoring argued that Align infringed the showdown
claims as a matter of law. Decision, 2024 WL 2261931, at
*2. Align argued that the same claims were directed to
ineligible subject matter under § 101.2 Id.
2 Align also argued that the showdown claims were
invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 112. Decision, 2024 WL
2261931, at *2. It repeats that argument before us.
Resp. Br. 63–64. Because we agree with Align that the
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 7
The district court agreed with Align and, applying the
two-step framework set forth in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank
Int’l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), concluded that the showdown
claims were ineligible under § 101 as a matter of law.
Decision, 2024 WL 2261931, at *3–9. The court concluded,
at Alice step one, that claim 14 of the ’248 patent was
“directed to [the] patent-ineligible concept” of “collecting
information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of
the collection and analysis.” Id. at *3–4 (quoting Elec.
Power Grp., LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353
(Fed. Cir. 2016)). Similarly, it concluded that, regarding
dependent claim 12 of the ’409 patent, independent claim
1 was directed to the abstract idea of acquiring and
analyzing an image, then presenting the image in a
message to guide the user to take a new image. Id. at *6.
The district court then reasoned that claim 12 thus “merely
recite[d] a common practice long performed by dental
practitioners.” Id.
At Alice step 2, the district court concluded there was
no “inventive concept” that rendered claim 14 of the ’248
patent eligible because the claim used generic hardware to
simply accomplish the abstract idea in the specific field of
dental aligner assessment. Id. at *7. The district court
reached a similar conclusion for claim 12 of the ’409 patent,
concluding that there was no inventive concept to save the
claim, as “the[] claim limitations d[id] not amount to
significantly more than the execution of an abstract idea by
means of generic computer components.” Id. at *8.
Dental Monitoring timely appealed. We have
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).
showdown claims are ineligible under § 101, we need not
reach that argument.
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 8
STANDARD OF R EVIEW
We review a district court’s grant or denial of summary
judgment under the law of its regional circuit, here, the
Ninth Circuit. See Landmark Screens, LLC v. Morgan,
Lewis, & Bockius, LLP, 676 F.3d 1354, 1361 (Fed. Cir.
2012) (citation omitted). The Ninth Circuit “review[s] the
district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo,
determining whether, viewing all evidence in the light
most favorable to the nonmoving party, there are any
genuine issues of material fact and whether the district
court correctly applied the relevant substantive law.” Id.
(alteration in original) (quoting Kraus v. Presidio Tr.
Facilities Div./Residential Mgmt. Branch, 572 F.3d 1039,
1042–43 (9th Cir. 2009)). Moreover, we apply our own law
to questions of patent law, and, as relevant here,
determinations of subject-matter eligibility under § 101 are
reviewed de novo. See Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft Corp.,
822 F.3d 1327, 1334 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (citation omitted).
D ISCUSSION
Section 101 of the Patent Act defines the subject matter
eligible for patent protection as “any new and useful
process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter,
or any new and useful improvement thereof.” However,
that provision has been held by the Supreme Court to be
subject to the limitation that “[l]aws of nature, natural
phenomena, and abstract ideas are not patentable.” Alice,
573 U.S. at 216 (citation omitted). Under the two-step
framework in Alice, we first ask whether the claims are
directed to “one of those patent-ineligible concepts,” and, if
so, we next ask whether they include an “inventive
concept” sufficient to transform that ineligible concept into
patent-eligible subject matter. Id. at 217–18.
Dental Monitoring argues that the district court erred
in concluding that the showdown claims are directed to
patent-ineligible subject matter. See Open. Br. 4. We
address each Alice step in turn.
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 9
I
Under Alice step one, we examine the showdown claims
to see if they are directed to a “patent-ineligible concept,”
such as an abstract idea. See 573 U.S. at 216–17. After
doing so here, we conclude that the showdown claims are
directed to abstract ideas and thus fail Alice step one.
Claim 14 of the ’248 patent is directed to the abstract
idea of collecting and analyzing image information using a
deep learning device. See ’248 pat., col. 32 ll. 6–23 (method
in claim 1 comprising the steps of “acquisition of . . . [an]
analysis image” via a cell phone and “analysis of the
analysis image by means of a deep learning device”); id. at
col. 34, ll. 21–42 (claim 14 specifying deep learning device
analysis details). Claim 12 of the ’409 patent is directed to
the abstract idea of image acquisition, analysis via a “deep
learning device,” comparison to a setpoint, and transmittal
of the analysis result. See ’409 pat., col. 32 ll. 13–33; id. at
col. 34, ll. 34–35 (claim 12 specifying the image transmittal
to be via acquiring apparatus); see also id. at col. 33 ll. 10–
21 (claim 7 specifying deep learning device analysis).
Both claims thus fall within the “familiar class of
[patent-ineligible] claims” that focus on “collecting
information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of
the collection and analysis.” See Elec. Power Grp., 830 F.3d
at 1353–54 (holding claims ineligible that “gather[ed] and
analyz[ed] information of a specified content, then
display[ed] the results”).
That the claims utilize a “deep learning device” to
analyze the images does not change our analysis. The
specifications state that the “deep learning device” is
“preferably a neural network” that could be from a preset
list of many “networks specializing in the classification of
images” or “networks specializing in the location and
detection of objections in an image.” See ’248 pat., col. 16
ll. 5–36; ’409 pat., col. 16 ll. 13–43. The showdown claims
are thus ineligible because they simply apply machine
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 10
learning to the above-mentioned abstract ideas in a new
environment––the field of dental arch image analysis. See
Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., 134 F.4th 1205,
1213–14 (Fed. Cir. 2025) (holding claims ineligible where
they applied generic machine learning components in a
new field of use), cert. denied, 146 S. Ct. 891 (2025).
Furthermore, while claim 14 of the ’248 patent and
claim 7 of the ’409 patent require that the “deep learning
device” be trained in a specific manner ––i.e., on a “learning
base” comprising more than a thousand images of dental
arches, see ’248 pat., col. 34 ll. 21–33; ’409 pat., col. 33 ll.
12–17––that does not mean they provide a specific techno-
logical solution that would render the claims patent-eligi-
ble. That a “deep learning device” be trained on a specific
subset of data is “incident to the very nature of machine
learning,” and thus is not a “technological improvement”
rendering the claims eligible under § 101. See Recentive,
134 F.4th at 1212.
Dental Monitoring argues that claim 14 of the ’248 pa-
tent provides a specific technological solution because the
trained device quantitatively assesses the separation be-
tween an aligner and teeth on a tooth-by-tooth basis.
Open. Br. 24–25; Reply Br. 9–15. It contends that the
method in claim 14 is “an advance in orthodontic technol-
ogy itself” because the “deep learning device” can “perform
[a] more precise and objective evaluation of the fit of an
aligner than was previously possible.” Reply Br. 12; see
also Oral Arg. 00:30–00:47, available at
cafc.uscourts.gov/oral-arguments/24-2270_06082026.mp3.
But that argument is unpersuasive. Fatal to Dental Mon-
itoring’s argument is that it ignores the language of the
claim itself; nothing in claim 14 requires a specific quanti-
tative assessment beyond the ability of an orthodontist.
See ’248 pat., col. 32 ll. 6–23, col. 34 ll. 21–42.
The claim does require the “determination . . . of an
amplitude of said separation [between the tooth and
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 11
aligner].” Id. at col. 34 ll. 41–42. Orthodontists, however,
regularly make such a determination without the use of a
“deep learning device.” See ’248 pat. col. 1 ll. 12–13; id. at
col. 15 l. 65–col. 16 l. 4; J.A. 526–27. At most, the claimed
methods may perform such determination of the amplitude
of separation with greater efficiency or speed due to the
nature of the generic “deep learning device.” But that does
not render the claims patent-eligible. See Recentive,
134 F.4th at 1214 (“[T]he claimed methods are not
rendered patent eligible by the fact that (using existing
machine learning technology) they perform a task
previously undertaken by humans with greater speed and
efficiency than could previously be achieved.”).
II
We next turn to Alice step two. Here, we look to see if
the showdown claims “include ‘additional features’ to en-
sure that the claims are more than a drafting effort de-
signed to monopolize the abstract idea.” See Alice, 573 U.S.
at 221 (citation modified and internal citation omitted).
Accordingly, we look at whether the claim elements add an
“inventive concept” in the application of collecting, analyz-
ing, and displaying image data. See Elec. Power Grp.,
830 F.3d at 1353.
The showdown claims fare no better at step two, as
there is no “inventive concept” sufficient to transform the
ineligible abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter.
As stated previously, the “deep learning device” from each
claim is conventional; the patents themselves explain that
the device can be chosen from a list of well-known and
available neural networks. See ’248 pat., col. 16 ll. 5–36;
’409 pat., col. 16 ll. 13–43. And that generic “deep learning
device” is used in the process of assessing aligner fit via
image capture, analysis, and display––i.e., the abstract
idea itself. Accordingly, we see nothing in the showdown
claims that “transforms the claims into something
‘significantly more’ than a claim on the patent-ineligible
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 12
concept itself.” See Broadband iTV, Inc. v. Amazon.com,
Inc., 113 F.4th 1359, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2024) (quoting Alice,
573 U.S. at 217–18).
Dental Monitoring argues that the claims pass muster
under Alice step two because the “deep learning device”
must be trained in a specific process. See Reply Br. 22–23,
25. We disagree. As we stated previously, that a machine
learning model is specially trained is “incident to the very
nature of machine learning.” See Recentive, 134 F.4th at
1212. That the “deep learning device” here is trained on
specific images does not make the “deep learning device”
itself non-generic.
Dental Monitoring next argues that using “deep
learning devices” to guide orthodontic treatment was not
“conventional” at the time the patent issued. See Reply
Br. 24–25. But that misses the mark because “the relevant
inquiry is not whether the claimed invention as a whole is
unconventional or non-routine.” See BSG Tech LLC v.
Buyseasons, Inc., 899 F.3d 1281, 1290 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
Rather, we look for an “inventive concept” that “transforms
the claims into something ‘significantly more’” than the
abstract idea. See Broadband iTV, 113 F.4th at 1370
(quoting Alice, 573 U.S. at 217–18). To the extent that
Dental Monitoring considers the “deep learning device” to
be “something significantly more” so as to render the
claims patent-eligible, that argument is unavailing given
that the patents themselves confirm that the “deep
learning device” is generic.
And finally, Dental Monitoring’s alternative argument
that there is a factual dispute regarding the well-
understood nature of the claims so as to prevent a grant of
summary judgment is unavailing. See Open. Br. 42, 59–
60. There is no factual dispute regarding the generic
nature of the “deep learning device,” because, as we note
above, the patents themselves confirm its conventional
nature. See ’248 pat., col. 16 ll. 5–36 (confirming that the
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DENTAL MONITORING SAS v. ALIGN TECHNOLOGY , INC. 13
“deep learning device” could be chosen from neural
networks made by, e.g., Google or Microsoft); ’409 pat., col.
16 ll. 13–43 (same).
CONCLUSION
We have considered Dental Monitoring’s remaining
arguments but find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing
reasons, we affirm the district court’s conclusion that
claims 1, 7, and 12 of the ’409 patent and claims 1 and 14
of the ’248 patent are ineligible under § 101 and hence
invalid.
AFFIRMED
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