CO.sub.2 laser marking of coated surfaces for product identification

Abstract

One aspect of the present invention is a method for marking metal or other product for its identification. This method includes the steps of: (a) forming on said product or on a tag to be attached to said product a layer of coating containing an additive that is darkenable under the action of a CO.sub.2 laser beam to form product identification indicia; (b) providing a raster-scanning infrared laser beam emitting CO.sub.2 laser that raster-scans in the Y-axis; (c) effecting impingement of said laser beam from said laser onto said coating layer, wherein one or more of said laser beam or said coating layer moves in the X-axis for said laser beam to form said product identification indicia from said additive that is darkened by said laser beam; and (d) if said coating layer was applied to a tag, attaching said tag to said product. The zone can be an area on the metal product that has been coated with a layer of the coating or can be a metal tag that has been coated with a layer of the coating. Another aspect of the present invention is the laser marked identification tag disclosed herein.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.