Authentication method and system
AssigneeTracer Detection Technology Corp.
InventorsJay Fraser, Larry Weber
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Abstract
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for the production and labeling of objects in a manner suitable for the prevention and detection of counterfeiting. Thus, the system incorporates a variety of features that make unauthorized reproduction difficult. In addition, the present invention provides a system and method for providing a dynamically reconfigurable watermark, and the use of the watermark to encode a stochastically variable property of the carrier medium for self-authentication purposes.
Claims20
A method for self-authenticating a physical document, comprising:
- providing a physical document having a permanently fixed stochastically variable characteristic;
- measuring the stochastically variable characteristic to a precision greater than the stochastic variation, to thereby determine a randomly variable attribute of the physical document;
- and
- encoding a description of the stochastically variable characteristic and a deterministic identifier of the physical document in association with the physical document in an encoding process resistant to counterfeiting of the physical document,
- wherein the encoding is uniquely associated with the physical document and association with a different physical document is discoverable,
- wherein the encoding of a description of the stochastically variable characteristic and a deterministic identifier of the physical document in association with the physical document comprises defining a dynamic watermark which is integrated in a stock of the physical document during manufacture of a physical document stock, and
- wherein the dynamic watermark is formed by a calendaring roll having a digitally reconfigurable watermark.
A system for self-authenticating a physical document, comprising:
- an input receiving a precise quantitative description of a stochastically variable characteristic of a physical document, to thereby determine a randomly variable attribute of the physical document;
- and
- a description of the stochastically variable characteristic and a deterministic identifier of the physical document written in association with the physical document in a counterfeit-resistant process, wherein a transfer of association of the written description to another physical document is discoverable through an analysis of the precise quantitative description of the stochastically variable characteristic of the physical document originally received, and a precise quantitative description of a stochastically variable characteristic of a physical document whose authenticity is in question,
- wherein the physical document comprises watermark elements which are generated in response to a digital control which varies a watermark configuration between successive passes of a watermarking device over a fiber web which results in stock for the physical document.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.