Opinion ID: 4440632
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: wherein during use said ortho-

Text: dontic remodeling device is held in place only by teeth clamping on the bite plate and said orthodontic re- modeling device vibrates at a fre- quency from 0.1 to 400 Hz; and b) activating said orthodontic remodeling device for 1 to 20 minutes daily; wherein said method provides accelerated tooth movement as compared to without using said orthodontic remodeling device. Id. col. 14 ll. 1–20 (emphasis added). 4 ORTHOACCEL TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. PROPEL ORTHODONTICS, LLC The application that led to the ’184 patent claims priority to a series of applications starting with U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/906,807, filed on March 14, 2007 (“the provisional application”). The provisional application led to non-provisional U.S. Application No. 11/773,849, filed on July 5, 2007, and published on September 14, 2008 (“the parent application”). U.S. Application No. 12/615,049 is a continuation-in-part of the parent application and was filed on November 9, 2009, more than one year after publication of the parent application (“the CIP application”). The CIP application was followed by two parallel continuation applications, and then the continuation application from which the ’184 patent issued. Both the provisional application and the parent application disclose only that OrthoAccel’s vibrating device should be worn for “approximately” or “about” twenty minutes per day. J.A. 578, 609, 614. Both of these applications also disclose that “longer or shorter” time periods or “any other suitable duration of time” may be used, but do not expressly disclose any other specific period of time. J.A. 578–79, 609. The CIP application first introduced time periods other than “about” 20 minutes, disclosing the same durations of “1–60 minutes, preferably about 1–30 or 1–10 minutes or 20 minutes” as the ’184 patent. J.A. 661–62.