US 6,186,398 B1Granted

Magnetic card

AssigneeDai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.

InventorsYoko Kato, Keisuke Hori

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Abstract

A magnetic card in which a magnetic layer is successfully concealed without lowering the magnetic output of the magnetic layer and giving any restriction to the design of the card. Such a magnetic card can be produced in the following manner. A magnetic layer (magnetic stripe) 12 is formed on a substrate 11 by means of thermal transfer, and a thin film layer 13 is formed, by vacuum deposition or the like, on the entire surface of the substrate 11 including the surface of the magnetic layer 12 to conceal the magnetic layer 12. Patterns, etc. are printed on the surface of the thin film layer 13 to form a print layer 14, and a light-diffractive structure layer 15 is further formed on the print layer 14 of thermal transfer. On the other hand, a print layer 14A is provided on the back surface of the substrate 11, and a reverse side protective layer 16 is further provided on the print layer 14A to cover it. After these layers are formed to obtain a laminate, a card of a predetermined shape is punched from the laminate, and subjected to a post-treatment to finally obtain a magnetic card 10.

Claims7

Dependent claims

A magnetic card comprising;

a substrate;
a magnetic layer provided on the substrate, in which information is magnetically recorded in such a manner that the recorded information can be magnetically read;
a thin film layer made from a metal or metallic compound having the property of concealing the underlying layer, provided to cover at least the magnetic layer;
a print layer which is provided either partly or entirely over the surface of the substrate to cover at least a part of the thin film layer;
and
a light-diffractive structure layer having a light-diffractive pattern from which an image can be reconstructed by the diffraction of light, which is provided either partly or entirely over the surface of the substrate to cover at least a part of the print layer, the light diffractive structure layer having an overlapping region that overlaps the print layer in the direction of thickness, the overlapping region of the light-diffractive structure layer being made either transparent or semitransparent;
wherein the reading of the information recorded in the magnetic layer is performed by a magnetic output obtained from the magnetic layer through the thin film layer, the print layer and the light diffractive structure layer.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.