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Self-customizable Mouth Guard

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14.11.2012

<strong>Background</strong><br> Mouth guards and mouth pieces are widely used in many fields of applica-tions. Mouth guards can prevent or reduce injury to the teeth and gums in contact sports like American football or boxing. Furthermore mouth pieces are used in medical breathing apparatus or diving equipment. They are even utilized in dental procedures like tooth bleaching or as dental night guards. Mouth guards and mouth pieces are either produced in mass production with low costs resulting in a poor wearing comfort or they are manufactured by an expensive customized fabrication process. There is a great demand for custom-fit mouth guards and dental appliances without the need to have it formed by a dentist. Mouth guards and mouthpieces are usually made from soft or hard materials, but it would be desirable to fabricate custom-fit mouth guards which are hard enough to offer protection and soft enough to provide a high wearing comfort.<br><br> <strong>Technology</strong><br> This self-customizable mouth guard is made of a shape memory polymer (e.g. polyesterurethane). The shape memory polymer turns into the custom form, if it is heated and custom-fitted (boil-and-bite principle). But the shape memory polymer can return to its predefined form when heating them above a material-dependent transition temperature and the mouth guard can be custom fitted several times. Due to its customized form the mouth guard enables a high wearing comfort. <br><br> <strong>Benefits</strong> <ul> <li>Enables self-customizable fitting via boil-and-bite process</li> <li>High wearing comfort </li> <li>For professional and amateur use </li> </ul> <p><strong>IP Rights</strong><br> German patent application (11/2011)<br> PCT patent application <br> <br> <strong>Patent Owner</strong><br> Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin</p>

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