Counterfeiters beware: this new system could put you out of a job! The trick: special pigments in miniscule, economical doses to measure and store geometric patterns to safeguard your credit cards, among other things. Lost already? Don’t worry, it can be explained without giving it all away to the bad guys.
This method has been designed and patented by German-based Klöckner Pentaplast to distinguish the original packaging from counterfeit replicas in pharmaceutical, food, medical device, and specialty applications. The result is a more secure and economical packaging that helps manufacturers to trace their products.
The illustrations below show how it is done. Special fluorescent color pigments are added to PVC film during production in such a way that each cm² contains two to five different pigments particles. These pigments are activated using special IR or UV lights. The resulting image can be recorded with a normal camera.
A specially designed software randomly defines different triangles from three, four or more points and the angles characteristics of these triangles. The number of triangles is defined by the desired protection level.
To tell genuine from fake, the fluorescent image generated by the pigments is captured with a regular camera and compared against the original pattern.
So counterfeiters, better keep your day job!
This ingenious technique has several main advantages, explains Dr. Christian Kohlert, head of process technology at Kloeckner Pentaplast:
- ''You don't need much storage capacity, which makes the authentification process very fast.''
- ''The counterfeiting protection is obtained at very low cost as only very few pigments need to be added (< 0.001%).
- ''The pigment distribution is absolutely random as it’s given by the calendaring production process and for that reason, it's impossible to counterfeit.''
Maybe the right time for counterfeiters to think of a career change? Or will they try to prove Dr. Kohlert wrong?
