Object Marking for Optical Authentication via Stochastic Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for object authentication, such as those using microscopic properties or DNA markings, are vulnerable to reproduction due to their deterministic nature, and require specialized equipment for verification, limiting their effectiveness against counterfeiting.
Innovation Solution
A method involving a base material with a periodically recurring pattern of security features whose period is larger than the object marking, allowing for arbitrary and random selection of cutouts, making each cutout unique and difficult to replicate, utilizing stochastic processes to ensure non-reproducibility and verifiability with commercially available cameras.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If microscopic properties or DNA markings are used for authentication, then security against counterfeiting is improved, but verification requires specialized equipment and cannot be performed with commercially available cameras
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses a repeating pattern that can be captured by standard cameras, allowing the authentication marking to be copied via simple photocopying while maintaining its security function. The pattern is designed to be readable by commercially available digital cameras rather than requiring specialized microscopic equipment.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the scale parameter of the security features from microscopic to macroscopic, making them visible to standard cameras. The repeating pattern consists of larger features that can be captured by commercial digital cameras while still providing stochastic security properties.
2Ease of manufacture
If a repeating pattern with fixed content is used for product marking, then manufacturing effort is reduced, but the marking can be fully reproduced by photocopying
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only a portion of the repeating pattern for the actual product marking. By selecting a random subset of elements from the larger repeating pattern, the marking maintains ease of manufacture while preventing complete reproduction, as the selected portion cannot be predicted from the full pattern alone.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent divides the repeating pattern into multiple segments and selects only one random segment for the product marking. This segmentation allows the full pattern to be manufactured once and reused, while each product receives a unique random segment that cannot be predicted without knowing the selection process.
3Reliability
If random physical processes are used to create security marks, then uniqueness and number of distinguishing features increase, but the marks can be fully captured by simple photocopying
Solution Approach 1:
The patent accepts that photocopying is possible but makes the pattern resistant to meaningful reproduction. The repeating pattern with random selection is designed to be captured by standard cameras, and the security lies in the unpredictability of which pattern elements appear, not in preventing the capture itself.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces dynamic randomness into the marking process by selecting pattern elements based on a random physical process. This dynamic selection ensures that even though the base pattern is static and manufacturable, each product marking is unique and unpredictable, preventing successful reproduction attempts.
4Adaptability or versatility
If digital random patterns are used in hot stamping, then security features can be applied in freely selectable shapes, but the randomness is deterministic and digitally replicable
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces digital deterministic randomness with a random physical process. Instead of using computer-generated random patterns that are ultimately deterministic, the invention uses physical randomness (such as random material feed or stochastic deposition) to create truly unpredictable patterns that cannot be replicated digitally.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the nature of randomness from digital/deterministic to physical/stochastic. By using random physical processes in the hot stamping or marking process, the patterns become genuinely unpredictable and cannot be reproduced by digital means, while still allowing flexible shape selection.
Data Source
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AI summary
Object marking (6), and method for producing same, for optical authentication of an object (10), wherein at least one segment (8) of a material piece (1) of a basic material is defined arbitrarily or randomly and the object marking (6) is produced with the at least one segment (8), and wherein the basic material of the material piece (1) has a repeating security feature (5) having optical properties dependent on the viewing angle, the dimensions of said security feature being larger than the dimensions of the segment (8), more particularly larger than the dimensions of the object marking (6), such that each segment (8) is unique and has only a part of the security feature (5).