Product Authentication Using Printing Defects and Error Correction
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for protecting trademarks and products against counterfeiting fail to provide unique identification and traceability, as they allow copies to reproduce authentication elements, making it difficult to distinguish between legitimate and illicit products.
Innovation Solution
A method and device that mark each product with a unique, error-corrected code, readable by camera, which associates with a specific key, ensuring each product has distinct information, and includes features like error correction codes and two-dimensional barcodes for enhanced security and readability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If steganography techniques are used to conceal copyright verification information in images, then authentication information can be hidden in images, but the encoded information is the same for all legal copies making it impossible to identify or individualize copies
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces printing defects as local unique characteristics in the mark applied to each product. These defects are inherent to the specific printing process and vary from product to product, providing local individualization. The system captures these defects via camera and uses them to generate unique keys for each product, thereby maintaining authentication capability while enabling individual identification of each copy.
2Loss of information
If production line marking systems with inkjet printers are used to individualize products, then products can be individualized and dated, but copies can reproduce authentication elements making it ineffective against slavish copying
Solution Approach 1:
The patent converts the harmful effect of printing defects (which could be seen as imperfections or errors) into a beneficial security feature. The printing defects, which occur naturally during the marking process, are captured and used to generate unique cryptographic keys. This approach transforms what could be considered a flaw in the printing process into the foundation of the security system, making copies ineffective since they cannot reproduce the exact same printing defects.
3Reliability
If error correction codes are included in the mark, then the mark information remains accessible even if damaged, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent integrates error correction codes into the existing mark structure, allowing the same marking system to serve multiple functions: authentication, individualization, and damage tolerance. The error correction codes are embedded within the mark itself, enabling the system to recover information even when parts of the mark are damaged or degraded, without requiring a separate redundancy system.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
The authentication process for a set of products includes, for each product: - a step (330) of marking said product to produce a mark representative of a first content and - a step (330) of associating an information carrier with said product, said information carrier supporting information representative, on the one hand, of the first content and, on the other hand, of a key specifically assigned to said product in said set of products, said representative information being, consequently, different for each product of said set.