SmileDirectClub Renews Legal Fight With Teeth-Aligning Rival

(Bloomberg) -- SmileDirectClub Inc., armed with a new patent, has renewed its legal fight with rival Candid Care Co. to protect its share of the expanding U.S. market for teeth-straightening products sold directly to consumers.

A previous patent for SmileDirectClub’s retail concept and the process by which it develops plastic aligners for customers was invalidated Monday by a federal judge in Delaware, who also tossed the company’s earlier infringement lawsuit against Candid Care. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly called the patent an “abstract idea” that shouldn’t have been issued.

But on Tuesday, Nashville-based SmileDirectClub said the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office had issued a new patent for its SmileShop concept “and digital customer journey.” The company promptly sued Candid Care again, this time in Waco, Texas, a venue considered friendlier to patent owners than federal courts in Delaware.

SmileDirectClub’s process for making clear aligners to straighten teeth is “the future of orthodontia,” Susan Greenspon Rammelt, the company’s chief legal officer, said in a statement Tuesday. The new patent “has reaffirmed this innovative intellectual property, granting further protection of additional elements of our unique telehealth platform as combined with our retail operations,” she said.

SmileDirectClub sells 3D-printed aligners based on teeth impressions made in its shops or at home with a kit. More than a million people have used its products since SmileDirectClub was founded in 2014. The company said the market could grow to 100 million in the U.S. alone.

Candid, which offers competing products through its Candid Studios, infringes the latest patent, according to the Texas complaint. SmileDirectClub is seeking lost profits and a reasonable royalty, along with a court order blocking Candid’s operation of its studios.

Lawyers for Candid didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

SmileDirectClub in January said it would start selling its aligners to dentists and orthodontists, putting it in direct competition with one-time partner Align Technology Inc.’s Invisalign. A supply pact with Align that limited SmileDirectClub to selling its products only online and in retail shops expired at the end of 2019. The SmileShop platform as of 2019 accounted for 85-90% of the company’s scans of patients’ teeth, the company said in court filings.

The case is SmileDirectClub LLC v. Candid Care Co., 6:20-cv-1115, U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas (Waco).

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