Patent ID: 8651857

Claim:
A dental appliance for correcting tooth alignment, the appliance comprising: a body for seating on an arch of teeth, the body having a lingual wall configured to confront lingual surfaces of a patient's teeth, a facial wall configured to confront facial surfaces of the patient's teeth, and a connecting wall connecting the lingual wall and the facial wall, wherein: (i) at least one of the lingual wall and the facial wall is elastically deformable from a pre-seated condition in which the body is not seated on the arch of teeth into a seated condition in which the body is seated on the arch of teeth, the lingual wall and the facial wall being separated from each other a first distance at corresponding first ends connected to the connecting wall and separated from each other a second distance less than the first distance at corresponding second ends opposite the first ends when the at least one elastically deformable wall is in the pre-seated condition, (ii) the separation of the lingual wall from the facial wall results in a recess to receive the teeth such that, when the body is in the pre-seated condition, the recess includes accommodation for a misaligned tooth in a desired post-alignment position and for only a distal tip of the misaligned tooth in a pre-alignment position, and (iii) the body applies, when seated on the arch of teeth and by virtue of the elastic deformation of the at least one elastically deformable wall, a correction force on one or more misaligned teeth, the correction force being applied by an interior face of the at least one elastically deformable wall to a base of the crown at a gum margin of the one or more misaligned teeth, in a direction in which each of the one or more misaligned teeth is to be moved to correct its alignment.