Texas jury says 3Shape must pay $12m over dental scanner

A Texas jury has handed a $12 million victory to an Israeli company after finding that Danish company 3Shape’s dental scanner infringed one of its patents.

In a verdict filed on Friday, April 8, the jury found 3Shape willfully infringed two claims of US Patent 6,402,707 owned by Densys and also induced others to infringe.

The jury also proposed an $11.9 million award to compensate for 3Shape’s infringement, which will need to be approved by a district court judge.

Densys first filed its complaint against 3Shape in 2019, claiming that the company's intraoral 3D scanners and related hardware and software infringed the ‘707 patent as well as US Patent 9,222,768.

It specifically targeted 3Shape’s “Trios” branded scanners used for identifying and diagnosing oral conditions.

According to Densys, the development of the 3Shape Trios began in 2007 or 2008, “well after” the issuance of the ‘707 patent in 2002.

Prior to this, Densys claims that a vice president at 3Shape wrote to Densys to ask if the company was interested in “exploring business opportunities” with 3Shape.

Densys then met with 3Shape’s CEO in 2010, where the company learned of the ‘707 patent. In 2012, Densys wrote a letter to a 3Shape notifying the company that its newly revealed Trios systems infringed the ‘707 patent.

Following the filing of the complaint in 2019, 3Shape filed for a summary judgment that the asserted claims of the ‘707 patent were invalid as non-enabled and followed with a filing of a motion for judgment as a matter of law earlier this month.

However, the case went before a jury for the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, which held that 3Shape infringed claims 1 and 37 of the ‘707 patent and proposed the $11.9 million award.

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