Security Element with Asymmetric Protective Layer Openings
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current security elements for authentication and identification are vulnerable to counterfeiting due to their inability to provide unambiguous assignment and are often inflexible, with existing methods relying on predefined authentication steps and lacking effective anti-counterfeiting mechanisms, leading to issues with false negatives and positives.
Innovation Solution
The use of deliberately introduced or accidental surface structures such as craquelure patterns, including cracks, fissures, shrinkage, wear, and soiling, which can be scanned and analyzed as a dynamic security feature, allowing for unique identification and authentication of objects or living beings.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If printed security features with protective lacquer are used, then the security element can be protected against mechanical and chemical damage, but the protective layer can be easily detached and the printed image can be influenced, allowing forgery
Solution Approach 1:
The security element is divided into multiple layers including a base layer, printed security features, and a protective layer with through-going openings. This segmentation allows the protective layer to provide mechanical and chemical protection while the openings prevent complete detachment and enable verification of the underlying printed features, thus resolving the contradiction between protection and anti-forgery capabilities
Solution Approach 2:
The through-going openings in the protective layer act as intermediaries that allow verification of the printed security features beneath while maintaining the protective function. These openings enable optical access to the printed image without compromising the overall protective structure, preventing forgery while preserving protection against mechanical and chemical damage
2Ease of manufacture
If identical printed images with identical protective varnish are applied, then the security element can be reproduced, but the forgery cannot be distinguished from the original
Solution Approach 1:
The protective layer incorporates asymmetric through-going openings with specific patterns, positions, and shapes that are unique to each security element. This asymmetry ensures that even if identical printed images and protective varnish are applied to forgeries, the specific opening patterns cannot be replicated, enabling reliable distinction between originals and forgeries
Solution Approach 2:
The protective layer has non-uniform local properties through the strategically positioned through-going openings that provide verification access at specific locations. These localized features create unique quality patterns that differ from one security element to another, preventing complete replication and enabling authentication while allowing identical overall manufacturing processes
3Reliability
If digital watermark information is introduced into multiple layers, then authentication can be performed, but the layers can be made identical or deceptively similar and false negative errors are still possible
Solution Approach 1:
The protective layer features asymmetric through-going openings with unique patterns, positions, and configurations that create inherent differences between layers. This asymmetry prevents layers from being made identical or deceptively similar, as the opening patterns serve as unique identifiers that cannot be perfectly replicated, thereby enhancing authentication reliability while managing complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The through-going openings are pre-formed in the protective layer during manufacturing with specific patterns and positions. This preliminary action creates unique verification pathways before authentication occurs, enabling reliable distinction between layers and reducing false negative errors by establishing inherent differences that cannot be replicated
Data Source
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Figure 3A~3C
AI summary
The invention relates to a security element for marking, authenticating or identifying objects or living beings, such as people, animals or plants, comprising one or more layers of materials that are arranged next to or on top of each other or that overlap, which may comprise security markings, wherein at least one layer of the security element comprises, at least regionally, a crackle pattern in form of tears or cracks, nicks, wear areas or shrinkages and possible impurities, which can be scanned and detected together or separately as security features. The invention further relates to a method for producing such a security element and to the use thereof for authenticating a person or an object, or for authorizing, triggering, continuing, carrying out and ending an action.