Product Innovation: Paper

Creo's Traceless™ "Taggants" Make Coding for Package ID Impossible To See or Detect

Creo is in market development phase of its revolutionary Creo Traceless™ Security, Brand Authentication & ID Systems. Traceless possesses the ability to create intelligent item "labels" with unique yet invisible identification codes determined by micron-sized particles of the "taggant" material.

Invisible, that is, unless you possess the new Creo reading technology to determine the presence of the sub-forensic taggants, or read the taggants as a unique ID code. The Creo taggants can be on labels, on a package, on the product itself, or "in" the product material to create multiple levels of anti-counterfeiting, secure brand authentication.

Creo taggants can be mixed with printing inks and varnishes, copier toners, woven fibers, paper pulp, molded or extruded plastics, even molten metals and explosives. The system can be used to guarantee authenticity and catch fraudulent counterfeits at a cost that undercuts every system currently in use.

The Traceless system was invented by Dan Gelbart, CTO of Creo. The system orks from an item's "taggant image signature," which can be stored and retrieved from a database of billions of unique taggant "fingerprints." The taggant particle itself (from 0.5 micron to 8 microns in size) is used in such low concentrations (less than 2 parts per million) that even forensic analysis cannot detect it.

Three levels of security

The Creo sub-forensic Traceless tags can address three levels of security or ID:

1. Pass/Fail: When tested with a detection device, an item is found to be "marked" (i.e., genuine) or not. There are no unique codes and all items are treated equally, but the tag cannot be mimicked by a counterfeiter.
2. Group coding: Authentication involves reading the code and comparing to a known code or a code printed elsewhere. Group coding allows for differentiation between specific vendors, product lines, or batches.
3. Unique ID codes: Each individual item can be assigned a unique ID, even when there are billions of items. The taggant image signature is represented by an encrypted code (less than 20k) stored in a database, either central or portable. The unique and invisible ID code of each package can designate all possible package data in a larger carton or pallet, tracked and authenticated for inventory management.

A counterfeit-proof system

In effect, Traceless hides the whole security system so that counterfeiters can not find the tag, let alone try to copy the technology. The random pattern, or signature, is created by the Creo taggant particles' spacing relationship and is unique to every item tagged. While the idea of using randomly-generated natural phenomena for unique ID is not new, it has not been feasible until recent advances in computing power.

In a real-life security situation, imagine the ability to verify instantly a passport by a unique identifier that only matches one passport's serial number (from 0 to infinity). For high volume situations, Creo readers are capable of 100 reads per second for production line tagging or mail routing and security. And the tag can be applied almost anywhere in the manufacturing process—wherever it will be most efficient and economical. (Learn more by contacting Kevin Harell @ Creo.com.)