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US 6,746,053 B1Granted
System for preventing parallel marketing of retail items
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsAli Afzali-Ardakani, Claudius Feger, Marco Martens, Paul Andrew Moskowitz, Alejandro Gabriel Schrott, Charles P. Tresser, Robert Jacob von Gutfeld
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and method for detecting parallel marketing of an item, include forming at least one of a coating and a code on the item, interrogating the at least one of the coating and said code, and determining from the interrogating whether the item has been transferred from an authorized merchant to an unauthorized merchant.
Claims13
A system for detecting unauthorized marketing of an item comprising:
- a coating formed on said item, wherein said coating contains at least one chemical marker, wherein a presence of said at least one chemical marker forms a code, wherein said presence is not substantially observable under ordinary visible light, and wherein said presence is detectable by a unique spectrum;
- a detector for determining information contents of said coating and said code;
- and
- a processor for determining, based on an output of said detector, whether said item has been transferred from an authorized merchant to an unauthorized merchant,
- wherein said at least one chemical marker comprises at least one rare earth element,
- wherein an index of refraction of said coating and said item are substantially the same, and
- wherein said code is derived from a unique spectrum based upon a proportion of at least two chemical markers and a presence or absence of one or more chemical markers.
4 more elements
The system of 1, wherein said code is assigned to a merchant.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.