The Rapid Prototyping
Patent Museum

5. Medical RP Applications

RP is used to make a wide range of implants and prosthetic devices either directly, or indirectly, for surgical planning, and in the coming decades may be used to directly fabricate complex vascularized organs. Many medical and dental devices, including hearing aids, dental restorations and complex pills are being made by additive fabrication today. Patents describing these have been included under Rapid Manufacturing even though the application is medical in nature.

Year	US Patent No.	Title	Inventor	Assignee or Resulting Commercial Entity	Technology Area
5. Medical RP Applications
1990	4940412	Method of manufacturing anatomical models	Blumenthal; Rafael .	Elscint Ltd. (Isreal).	-
1994	5370692	Rapid, customized bone prosthesis	Fink; David J.; DiNovo; Salvatore T.; Ward; Thomas J.	Guild Associates, Inc.	-
1996	5490962	Preparation of medical devices by solid free-form fabrication methods	Cima; Linda G., Cima; Michael J.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	-
1996	5549697	Hip joint prostheses and methods for manufacturing the same	Caldarise; Salvatore	Johnson & Johnson Professional, Inc.	-
1997	5639402	Method for fabricating artificial bone implant green parts	Barlow; Joel W., Lee; Goonhee, Crawford; Richard H., Beaman; Joseph J., Marcus; Harris L., Lagow; Richard J.	none	-
1998	5823778	Imaging method for fabricating dental devices	Schmitt; Stephen M. , Chance; David A.	United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force	-
1999	5975893	Method and system for incrementally moving teeth	Chishti; Muhammad ; Lerios; Apostolos ; Freyburger; Brian ; Wirth; Kelsey ; Ridgley; Richard	Align Technology, Inc.	-
2000	6139574	Vascularized tissue regeneration matrices formed by solid free form fabrication techniques	Vacanti; Joseph P. ; Cima; Linda G. ; Cima; Michael J. .	Children's Medical Center Corporation ; Massachusetts Institute of Technology .	-
2001	6254639	Prosthetic implants	Peckitt; Ninian	none	-
2001	6327491	Customized surgical fixture	Franklin; Ronald J. ; Franck; Joel I. ; Haer; Frederick C.	Neutar, LLC	-
2002	6482234	Prosthetic spinal disc	Weber; Paul J. ; Da Silva; Luiz B.	Pearl Technology Holdings, LLC	-
2003	6520904	Device and method for restructuring heart chamber geometry	Melvin; David B.	University of Cincinnati	-
2005	6905738	Generation of viable cell active biomaterial patterns by laser transfer	Ringeisen; Bradley R.; Chrisey; Douglas B.; Pique; Alberto; McGill; R. Andrew	United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy	laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT)
Year	US Patent No.	Title	Inventor	Assignee or Resulting Commercial Entity	Technology Area

Use the Prev | Next links provided on each page to proceed sequentially through the entire patent list, although not precisely in the order the entries appear in the table. Links provided in the "Technology Area" column will take you to pages within the WWGRP site that either briefly explain the method, or to directory listings or archived materials where more information can be found. You can also use the site search function and main index to uncover additional information.