Anti-counterfeiting packaging

The recent surge in activity in the area of security printing and authentication has been driven by government legislation, anti-terrorism programmes and the pharmaceutical industry’s need to protect against counterfeit medication.

Costs are a primary consideration in today’s mass-manufacturing, profit-oriented industries. Unfortunately, simple low-cost solutions, such as fluorescent inks, are not appropriate for pharmaceutical use since they are easily detected. However, many authentication options meet the needs of the pharmaceutical industry with a wide range of costs and performances.

The operating cost of a security solution is a combination of the cost of detection devices and the cost of the packaging, specialised label or tag. Detection devices vary in complexity and price, ranging from a simple colour filter or screen costing $1 to a $100,000 forensic laboratory for DNA-type technologies. Authentication costs vary from 0.01¢ per item for some tagging solutions to almost $1 per item for some RFID.

Interestingly, the security level achieved by an anti-counterfeiting solution is not related to its cost. For example, low-level (parts per million) tagging delivers a very low cost per item, yet it provides higher security; since it is more difficult to find the taggant, counterfeiters cannot mimic the system.

Some solutions are difficult to counterfeit by their nature – security is often unrelated to cost or complexity. Solutions based on the uniqueness of random patterns can be very secure and even nearly impossible to circumvent. Fingerprinting, for example, one of the oldest and lowest-cost identification solutions, is still one of the best because it is intrinsically secure.

Taggant fingerprint

In developing a new solution for secure marking and authentication, Creo created an innovative intrinsically secure solution. The system uses the random distribution of an invisible, undetectable taggant. The ‘taggant fingerprint’ can be stored in and retrieved from a database of billions of unique fingerprints. The taggant itself is used in such low concentrations (a few parts per million) that even forensic analysis cannot detect it.

It can only be read with a special-purpose reader. The random patterns created by the Creo taggant cannot be reproduced, which makes it intrinsically secure evenif the public knows the taggant material. Each item’s unique ID is entered in the database, and is authenticated only when its pattern matches the ID in the database. While the idea of using randomly generated natural phenomena for unique ID is not new, advances in computer technology have made it possible to match an item to billions of items in a database within a fraction of a second.

The Creo system can be used without the database, in a standalone mode. For example, the unique ID can be printed with a second variable-data authentication marking, another machine-readable visible barcode, unique imaging pattern, serial number or MICR number. When the detection device reads the taggant, it compares it to a second marking to verify authenticity.

The Creo Traceless™ solution is based on a unique, undetectable inorganic taggant concept, combined with rugged, portable reader technology, and an authentication workflow database capable of storing, searching, cataloguing and comparing billions of unique ID codes in milliseconds, when unique ID coding of individual items is required. It overcomes many of the difficulties of existing solutions. End

Company profile

Creo, a subsidiary of the Eastman Kodak Company since 15 June 2005, has key strengths in imaging, software and digital printing plate technology.

The ‘tagged fingerprint’ can be stored in and retrieved from a database of billions of unique fingerprints

Creo Traceless Solution handles billions of unique ID codes in millisecond

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