From SCDigest's OnTarget e-Magazine
- May 7, 2015 -
RFID and AIDC News: Northwestern University Researchers Claim Breakthrough in Invisible Inks to Thwart Counterfeiting
Unique Color Patterns Function as Code Known Only to the Brand Company
SCDigest Editorial Staff
Researchers and brand companies have been chasing the use of various types of invisible inks to thwart counterfeiting for more than two decades. SCDigest editor Dan Gilmore, for example, says he was tangentially connected to a research project on invisible inks for product verification led by the well-known Battelle Institute in Columbus, OH in the mid-1990s, and research has continued on ever since.
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Each application of the ink can be made with a custom formula known only to the producer, which makes it especially hard to copy and suitable for precise identification techniques.
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What Do You Say?
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In fact, the idea to identify true goods from counterfeit ones goes back at least until the 13th century, when watermarks were invented to authenticate original documents. Ever since then, printers and forgers/counterfeiters have been in an arms race to out-do each other.
Now comes word out of Northwestern University of what may be a breakthrough in invisible ink technology that may give brand companies a decision and permanent advantage in this war. The school says some of its scientists have invented sophisticated fluorescent inks that one day could be used as invisible, multicolored bar codes or other images for companies and consumers to authenticate products that are often counterfeited. Snap a photo of say a traditional bar code or newer QR code with a smartphone, and it will tell you if the item is real - and worth the money.
Counterfeiting of course is very big business worldwide, with $650 billion per year lost globally, according to the International Chamber of Commerce, so the stakes are high.
This new ink - which can be printed on a regular ink jet printer with the right "cartridge" - becomes visible only inder ultraviolet light, but with a key difference from other such fluorescent inks: each application of the ink can be made with a custom formula known only to the producer, which makes it especially hard to copy and suitable for precise identification techniques.
The water-based ink comprises several commonly available chemical components that can be combined to produce a wide range of colors. Even a small change in the recipe would result in a significant change in color. Xisen Hou, one of the Northwestern researchers, says that "This is a smart technology that allows people to create their own security code by manually setting all the critical parameters."
The technology can be used in several ways to thwart counterfeiting. It is possible to adjust the ink formul to produce a bar code or image in multi-color gradients. An ink's range of color depends on the amounts and interaction of three different "ingredient" molecules, providing a built-in "molecular encryption" tool (one of the ingredients is a sugar.) Even a tiny tweak to the ink's composition results in a significant color change.
So that means a company representative, law enforcement official or even potentially an end customer could compare the actual colors in an invisible bar code - made visible with ultraviolet light - with an on-line image of what it is supposed to look like, either just visually or through some kind of "app" on a smart phone that does the comparison automatically.
Of course, for this to be truly useful for consumer, retail outlets would have to provide that ultraviolet light projection, but who knows - if this technology takes off, maybe phone makers will find a way to put that capability into the phones themselves.
(RFID and AIDC Story Continued Below)
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All this means the new fluorescent inks could give manufacturers and consumers an authentication tool that would be very difficult for counterfeiters to mimic.
The general approach to item verification has generally been done using some type of invisible bar code or other "watermark," both to make it less obvious such an image is even on the real branded item, and to be less objectionable to marketers concerned with every square millimeter of a product's packaging.