The number of illegal copies of documents, clothes, music, videos, spare-parts and various products has proliferated in the last years. There is hardly any business sector on the world that has not been affected so far.

The given task

Although the security features becomes optimized and advanced, copy pirates do find ways to either avoid these copy protections or to copy even the protection itself. The need for a universal copy protection feature that cannot be duplicated is paramount.

Characteristics

• Marking cannot be seen with the human eye
• Heat-proof up to 1000°C
• Acid and lye-proof pH 1-14
• Easy marking by ink-jet printing
• Contains spectral fingerprint
• Copy-proofed

The solution – Nano particles

Nano particles can be dispersed homogeneously in an ink, resulting in a colorless and completely transparent solution. When illuminated using a UV-lamp, the image printed with this ink fluoresces. The ink is applied by using an ink-jet method and is not discernable to the naked eye when printed onto a surface (e.g. paper, holograms, photographs, CD’s, glass, etc.). The design and function of a surface marked with nano particles is completely unaffected by the marking. Individually designed surfaces and characteristics can be created which make it impossible for illegal manufacturers to copy them. The marking can be changed easily during a running production process just by changing the ink. Therefore it is possible to easily identify production lots. Although the nano particles are invisible for the human eye, spectral image interpretation is an easy way to check the authenticity. In cooperation with other companies, m·u·t offers complete solutions for marking products, reading the security features and comparing those with stored data from a high-security database.

The fields of applications for identification of authenticity control are innumerable:

• Identity cards
• Tickets
• Badges
• Passports, visa
• Packaging
• Brand products
• Spare parts