WO2013064806A1

WO2013064806A1 - Identification arrangement

Info

Publication number: WO2013064806A1
Application number: PCT/GB2012/052572
Authority: WO
Inventors: Anthony Furness; Ian Smith
Original assignee: AIDC GLOBAL Ltd
Current assignee: AIDC GLOBAL Ltd
Priority date: 2011-10-31
Filing date: 2012-10-18
Publication date: 2013-05-10
Anticipated expiration: 2014-04-30
Also published as: GB201118755D0; GB2496127A; CN104067300A

Abstract

A printed mark (10) includes print material from a cartridge including red (14) and black (16) toner particles. The red particles (14) are in the minority. These have a unique distribution. The locations of the red particles is able to be recorded and then the mark is able to be compared again with the recording to determine whether the printed mark is the original mark or not.

Description

IDENTIFICATION ARRANGEMENT

The present invention relates to an article identification arrangement, a method of identifying an article and a method of enabling an article to be identified.

Optical readable data carrier symbols such as printed linear bar code symbols, multi-row bar code symbols and matrix code symbols can typically carry both type and unique identifiers in the form of encoded numeric and alpha-numeric sequences. While unique identifiers can be encoded within these symbols the symbols themselves can be reprinted and so provide a plurality of symbols that cannot be distinguished from one another on the basis of symbol structure and encoded identifiers. This reproducibility can be criminally exploited in presenting symbols of legitimate origin on counterfeit goods and associated packaging.

Other security and identification methods have used luminous fibres embedded in or attached to objects and secondary reference marks for positioning apparatus to derive identification images and subsequent digital signatures for identification. Other methods have also used secondary identifiers using linear bar codes and two dimensional codes to facilitate ease of locating and ease of authenticating signatures. Examples of security and identification methods are shown in WO 2005/080088, DE 102

04 870, US 6 035 915, GB 2 052 587, GB 460 405, GB 423 046, GB 256 921 , GB 232 246, GB 209 919, GB 2 325 065, US 4 1 14 032, FR 2 324 060, EP 1 300 810, US2005/259818, GB2399055, US2004/001604, EP1018712, US4464566, US2005/010776, US6104812, and GB1 180947..

Problems arise with such prior security identification methods including, in the case of WO 2005/080088, the necessity of incorporating luminous fibres into an object such as a bank note. These are difficult to produce and have limited applicability since it is necessary to make an object having such features.

Where the natural features of an objection are read, such as in GB 2 454 035 where it is necessary to reproduce a fingerprint of the natural surface features it is necessary to reproduce a scan line which has been read once and to read exactly the same line again. Such "finger printing", based on reproducing a scan line is discussed in detail in a document published by JDR Buchanan et al (2005) documents and Packaging, Nature, Vol. 436 28 July 2005 that relates to laser surface authentication, the contents of which are here by incorporated. It is an object of the present invention to attempt to overcome at least one of the above or other problems.

According to one aspect of the present invention a unique identification arrangement comprises a printed mark applied to an article, the mark including unique features that are able to be identified.

The printed mark may include randomly located unique features that may be distributed randomly on or in the printed mark. The unique features may be distributed randomly may be ink that may forms the printed mark.

The unique features may comprise a different colour print material to other in the print material of the printed mark distributed on or in the printed mark. The unique features may comprise ultra-violet light detectable features or infra-red light detectable features or visible features or electro-magnetically responsive features or magnetically responsive features or any combination thereof.

The printed mark may be printed directly on an article.

The printed mark may be applied to a substrate which is attached to an article.

The printed mark may include at least one feature that enables a reading of at least some of the unique features to be accurately read a plurality of times.

The article may comprise part of a medicine container or may be applied to a medicine container.

According to a further aspect of the present invention a method of applying randomly located unique features to an article comprises printing a mark including unique features.

The method may comprise printing a mark and including randomly located unique features that may be distributed randomly on or in the printed mark. The method may comprise distributing the unique features randomly in the ink that is used to print the mark.

According to a further aspect of the present invention a method of identifying an article comprises reading unique features of a printed mark applied to an article and recording the unique features and then comparing the recorded randomly located features with features derived from a printed mark applied to an article to determine if the printed marks are the same or not.

The method may comprise including randomly located unique features within the printed mark and recording the randomly located unique features.

The method may comprise reading unique features comprising items that are distributed randomly on or in the printed mark. The method may comprise recording one type of differently coloured print material that is randomly located on or in another colour of print material.

The method may comprise reading the unique features of a printed mark in at least one line at least partially across the mark.

The method may comprise reading the randomly located unique features in a plurality of lines across the mark.

The method may comprise reading the randomly located features of a printed mark with at least two lines that cross each other such as crossing in the X and Y directions possibly with a plurality of lines in those directions.

The method may comprise using at least one unique feature of the printed mark to locate the region of the mark that is to be read.

The present invention includes any combination of the herein referred to limitations or features.

The present invention can be carried into practice in various ways but one embodiment will now be described by way of example and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a plan view of a data carrier symbol (QR Code matrix symbol) or mark with distinguishable entities 10;

Figure 2 is a detail of Figure 1 of the section 2; Figure 3 is a grid pattern taken of entity field of part of the data carrier symbol or mark

12;

Figure 4 is a graph showing the count achieved along the X axis; Figure 5 is a graph sowing the count along the Y axis.

Figure 1 is a plan view of a data carrier symbol or mark that may be applied directly onto an object or that may be applied onto a substrate that may be applied to an object which substrates may be a label or a tag to be applied to an article. For example the tag or label may be attached to a container of medicine or tag or label applied to clothing or an artwork. The mark has randomly distributed elements on or in the mark.

The mark may comprise a printed mark. The mark includes print material. Randomly distributed elements may be included or added to the print material such as print material particles that may comprise ink including two colours, or elements that are able to be detected under ultra violet light or under infra red light or that are electromagnetically responsive or magnetically responsive or any combination thereof.

In Figures 1 and 12, for instance, the mark 10 has been printed from a toner print material cartridge including red 14 and black 16 particles. The red particles 14 are in the minority. Alternative printing modalities may be used where compatibility in respect of particle sizes and coating resistance can be achieved. Alternatively or additionally a secondary printing process may be used to apply or insert distributed elements onto or into the printed mark. If a secondary printing process is used the randomly distributed elements can be introduced with some or all parts of the mark.

The mark may comprise a barcode or other data carrier code symbols such as two- dimensional barcode and matrix code symbols (not shown).

The size of the distributed elements may be small in comparison with the remainder of the mark but large enough to be detected.

The distributed elements allow a unique code expression to be derived for a data carrier code symbol for unique symbol identification (primary identification) that is complementary to any identification code (secondary identification) that is carried (encoded) in the data carrier symbol.

The data carrier code symbol may carry the location code or address or the type of product or the production date or the batch number of any combination thereof such as a printed bar code or matrix code or mark for the location at which the unique symbol identification code expression is stored or registered and accessed for comparison or authentication purposes.

The processing sequence for deriving the coded expression of the randomly distributed elements is identified and registered and, later, a comparison is made to determine that the registered code expression corresponds to the code expression derived from the mark.

In the registration mode, part or all of the mark may be registered. The mark may have corners 18, or other features that enable a reader of the code to be correctly and precisely aligned.

As shown in Figures 3, 4 and 5 the entity field for the mark is scanned or processed in both the X and Y directions which may be a binary process and a graph is generated showing the number of particles in each square 20 of the mark. That generates a unique coded expression for the mark having peaks 22 and troughs 24 with different slopes to each peak and trough. Figure 4 shows the number of elements in each sequence of squares going across the X direction and Figure 4 shows the number elements in each sequence going across the Y direction. The numbers along the X axis and Y axis are recorded. Later the mark is read again and again the number of elements in each X and Y direction are read and they are compared to the recorded data to confirm that the mark corresponds to the registered mark.

The comparison method where the mark is read again and compared to the recorded mark may comprise a visual image comparison with the image display alternating sufficiently fast to distinguish any differences between the actual image and the reference or recorded image.

Alternatively or additionally the comparison method may comprise a quantitative entity field analysis using other algorithmic and or processing techniques. Typically there would be more distributed elements than shown in Figure 3.

Typically the entity field may be a combination of natural features and imposed distributed elements in the printed symbol.

In an alternative embodiment the entity field could be derived solely from the natural features of the printed symbol or from elements applied to an article such as applying only the randomly distributed elements. When only the natural feature of the printed mark are read the reading may comprise directing a line or lines of a laser to receive different unique reflective signals across the line or derived from a captured two-dimensional image of the printed mark by image pixel or pixel cluster analysis to determine natural feature variation along a line or lines. These different signals or pixel cluster variations are recorded and are then able to be read again and compared to the recorded images to confirm that the mark is the same.

When reading the mark or entity field an optical system may be capable of magnification, including electronic and software magnification in conjunction with a magnification reference feature derived from the matrix code (for the example presented) or other marks or symbol features.

Attention is directed to all papers and documents which are filed concurrently with or previous to this specification in connection with this application and which are open to public inspection with this specification, and the contents of all such papers and documents are incorporated herein by reference.

All of the features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), and/or all of the steps of any method or process so disclosed, may be combined in any combination, except combinations where at least some of such features and/or steps are mutually exclusive.

Each feature disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings) may be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose, unless expressly stated otherwise. Thus, unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature disclosed is one example only of a generic series of equivalent or similar features.

The invention is not restricted to the details of the foregoing embodiment(s). The invention extends to any novel one, or any novel combination, of the features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), or to any novel one, or any novel combination, of the steps of any method or process so disclosed.

Claims

1. An article identification arrangement comprising a printed mark applied to an article, the mark including unique features that are able to be identified, wherein:

the printed mark includes randomly located unique features;

and the unique features are items distributed randomly on or in the printed mark; and the unique features are distributed randomly in or on ink that forms the printed mark.

2. An arrangement claimed in any preceding claim in which the unique features comprise a different colour print material to other in the print material of the printed mark distributed on or in the printed mark.

3. An arrangement claimed in any preceding claim in which the unique features comprise ultra violet light detectable features.

4. An arrangement claimed in any preceding claim in which the unique features comprise infra red light detectable features.

5. An arrangement claimed in any preceding claim in which the unique features comprise visible features.

6. An arrangement claimed in any preceding claim in which the unique features comprises electro magnetically responsive features.

7. An arrangement claimed in any preceding claim in which the unique features comprise magnetically responsive features.

8. An arrangement as claimed in any preceding claim in which the unique features that are identified comprise a primary identification and the printed mark includes secondary identification features that identify the article.

9. An arrangement as claimed in claim 8 in which the secondary identification features relate to the type of product or the production date or the batch number.

10. An arrangement claimed in any preceding claim in which the unique features provide the facility for unique identification that complements the identification capability of data encoded into a data carrier printed symbol such as a barcode or matrix code symbol or mark.

1 1. An arrangement claimed in any preceding claim in which the printed mark is printed directly on an article.

12. An arrangement as claimed in any preceding claim in which the printed mark is applied to a substrate which is attached to an article.

13. An arrangement as claimed in any preceding claim in which the printed mark includes at least one feature that enables a reading of at least some of the unique features to be accurately read a plurality of times.

14. An arrangement as claimed in any preceding claim in which the article comprises part of medicine container or is applied to medicine container.

15. A method of applying randomly located unique features to an article comprising the printing of a mark including unique features, and including items that are unique features distributed randomly on or in the printed mark.

16. A method as claimed in claim 15 comprising the printing of a mark and distributing the unique features randomly in the print material that is used to print the mark.

17. A method as claimed in claim 15 or 16 in which the unique features of the printed mark comprise primary features and in which the mark is printed to also include secondary features that identify the article.

18. A method as claimed in any of claims 15 to 17 when making an article as claimed in any of claims 1 to 14.

19. A method of identifying an article comprising reading unique features of a printed ink mark applied to an article and recording the unique features and then comparing the recorded randomly located unique features with a printed mark applied to an article to determine if the printed marks are the same or not wherein the unique features comprise items that distributed randomly on or in the printed ink mark.

20. A method as claimed in claim 19 including randomly located unique features with the printed mark and recording the randomly located unique features.

A method as claimed in claim 19 or 20 comprising the reading of unique featu prising items that are distributed randomly on or in the printed mark.

22. A method as claimed in claim 20 or claim 21 when dependent on claim 20 comprising recording one type of differently coloured matter that is randomly located on or in another colour of the printed matter.

23. A method as claimed in any of claims 19 to 22 comprising reading the unique features of a printed mark in at least one line at least partially across the mark.

24. A method as claimed in claim 23 comprising reading the randomly located unique features in a plurality of lines across the mark.

25. A method as claimed in claim 23 or 24 comprising reading the randomly located features of a printed mark with at least two lines that cross each other.

26. A method as claimed in claim 25, comprising reading the randomly located features of a printed mark with a plurality of lines in the X direction and a plurality of lines in the Y direction.

27. A method as claimed in any of claims 19 to 26 comprising using at least one feature of the printed mark to locate the region of the mark that is to be read.

28. A method as claimed in any of claims 15 to 27 in which the reading of the unique features comprises a first identification with the prinked mark including secondary identification features that are read that identify the article.

29. A method as claimed in any of claims 19 to 28 when reading an arrangement comprising an article identification arrangement as claimed in any of claims 1 to 14 or when the mark has been applied as claimed in any of claims 15 to 18.