Get-Grin Receives Favorable Grants in Patent Infringement Lawsuit

Get-Grin Receives Favorable Grants in Patent Infringement Lawsuit | Image Credit: © Get-Grin

Get-Grin received some good news from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office regarding patent litigations brought by a competitor of the oral health manufacturer.

Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted all 3 of its reexamination requests for its client Get-Grin in its defense of patent litigations brought by Dental Monitoring.The granted reexams also resulted in a ful lstay of the patent litigations, the Washington D.C. firm states.

Get-Grin is the manufacturer and developer of solutions that include the Grin App and Grin Scope® designed to allow patients access to quality professional care from the convenience of their smart devices, all while clinicians remotely monitor patients via virtual check-ins for complete visibility. According to a press release, the Patent Office determined that each of Get-Grin’s requests raised “substantial new questions of patentability” as to whether Dental Monitoring’s patents should have been issued in the first place.

The latest order involved a patent that covers using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze photographs of a patient’s teeth. Dental Monitoring, which provides virtual treatment monitoring platforms, asserted the patent—along with 3 others—against Get-Grin in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. According to the press release, Get-Grin asked the Patent Office to take a second look at 3 of the patents, and the Patent Office has now granted all of Get-Grin’s requests, finding that Get-Grin successfully showed 20 substantial new questions of patentability—meaning that the patents cover inventions that may not be new after all. The Patent Office has likewise concluded that a similar petition filed by another competitor on the fourth patent that Dental Monitoring asserted against Get-Grin has a reasonable likelihood of success.

The Patent Office’s most recent decision comes on the heels of Judge Bryson (sitting by designation in Delaware),ruling to halt Dental Monitoring’s lawsuit against Get-Grin to allow the Patent Office time to review the validity of Dental Monitoring’s patents. As Judge Bryson noted, “it makes sense to ask the agency that issued the patent in the first place to decide whether it made a mistake, rather than to ask a court and 8 jurors–strangers to the original issuance decision—to take the lead in second-guessing the [PatentOffice’s] issuance decision,” the press release states. He further noted that Get-Grin’s reexaminations are “likely to result in the cancellation or amendment of at least some of the asserted claims” from the patents.

The Sterne Kessler team representing Get-Grin includes: directors Robert Green Sterne, Deirdre M. Wells, Daniel S. Block, Richard Crudo, Tyler Dutton, and Counsel James Hietala.

Additional details on the granted reexams can be found online here:

OrderGrantingRequestforExParteReexaminationNo.90/019,435regardingU.S.PatentNo.11,314,983

OrderGrantingRequestforExParteReexaminationNo.90/019,416regardingU.S.PatentNo.11,599,997

OrderGrantingRequestforExParteReexaminationNo.90/019,399regardingU.S.PatentNo.11,532,079

MemorandumOpinionandOrderGrantingaStayPendingReexaminationoftheAssertedClaims

Dental Products Report first reported on this lawsuit in May of 2022.