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AssigneeCanadian Bank Note Company, Limited
InventorDavid N.C. Cruikshank
Estimating the term…
A method is provided by the invention for printing surface applied images to a thermoplastic substrate to provide improved durability to the printed image. A preforming plate (e.g. lamination plate) for making a thermoplastic substrate used by the method and a security instrument made by the method are also provided by the invention. A thermoplastic substrate comprises in a predetermined area a pattern, preferably a cell pattern, of recessed image receiving surfaces below a nominal surface of the thermoplastic substrate and a pattern of bridges separating the recessed image receiving surfaces, the depths of the recessed image receiving surfaces and the areas of the bridges separating the recessed image receiving surfaces, relative to the areas of the recessed image receiving surfaces, chosen to provide durability to the image after the image has been printed onto the predetermined area. The image may be printed by ink jet printing. To additionally provide security features to the security instrument, latent and hidden images may be formed by latent image recesses and hidden image recesses, respectively, below the nominal surface.
A method for printing an image onto a predetermined area of a thermoplastic substrate, the method comprising:
A preforming plate for preforming a predetermined area of a thermoplastic substrate comprising a pattern of recessed image receiving surfaces below a nominal surface of the thermoplastic substrate and a pattern of bridges separating the recessed image receiving surfaces, the preforming plate comprising a pattern of raised surfaces in an area corresponding to the predetermined area of the thermoplastic substrate wherein the pattern of raised surfaces is formed as a mirror image of the pattern of recessed image receiving surfaces and pattern of bridges.
A security instrument comprising a thermoplastic substrate and an image printed onto a predetermined area of the thermoplastic substrate by ink jet printing, the predetermined area of the thermoplastic substrate comprising a pattern of recessed image receiving surfaces below a nominal surface of the thermoplastic substrate and a pattern of bridges separating the recessed image receiving surfaces, the depths of the recessed image receiving surfaces and the areas of the bridges separating the recessed image receiving surfaces, relative to the areas of the recessed image receiving surfaces, predetermined to protect the image against wear of the security instrument.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.