INTERNATIONAL TRADE : Foreign Competitors Will Pay to Settle Patent Disputes With Ceradyne Corp.

Ceradyne Corp. will receive an undisclosed sum to settle a lawsuit against Japanese and German competitors involving a patent dispute over ceramic brackets used in orthodontic braces, the company’s patent lawyer said Wednesday.

In addition, the Costa Mesa manufacturer of ceramic and metal products has settled complaints it raised with the U.S. International Trade Commission over alleged unfair trade practices by its competitors, said Leonard Tachner, a Newport Beach patent attorney for Ceradyne.

Terms of the settled lawsuit will provide Ceradyne and 3M Corp. in Minneapolis, a co-plaintiff, future royalties from competitors’ sales of translucent orthodontics brackets, Tachner said.

The competitors are Tomy Inc. of Tokyo and its distributor, GAC International Inc. in Islip, N.Y., and Dentaurum J.P. Winklestroeter KG in Ispringen, Germany, and its U.S. subsidiary, Dentaurum Inc. in Newtown, Pa.

Ceradyne and 3M’s subsidiary, 3M Unitek Corp., in Monrovia, jointly developed the translucent brackets and marketed them under the name Transcend. Tomy’s product is called Allure, and Dentaurum’s product is sold under the name Fascination.

The brackets, made from ceramic and other materials, pick up the color of a patient’s underlying teeth which effectively disguises the brackets. While transparent brackets can disguise the braces, they have a tendency to break easily. Opaque brackets are more durable but often don’t match the color of the patient’s teeth and are more visible.