Anticounterfeiting technology patent round-up

SecuringPharma.com's periodic round-up of recent patent awards in the area of anti-counterfeiting technologies includes news from IBM, Microsoft, Secure Logistics Sweden, SABIC Innovative Plastics and Illumina.

- IBM has been granted US Patent No. 7,647,193 - Authentication of pharmaceuticals using molecular computational identification - which describes a method, apparatus and computer programme for authenticating medicines using a photonic signal which can have a specific frequency and amplitude. The method relies on the use of molecular computational identification (MCID), in which molecules in a material are stimulated to give off a signal in the form of light. The signal can be compared to a database and will give an indication that the pharmaceutical product is counterfeit if the frequency and amplitude of the photonic signal does not match.

- Microsoft Corp has been granted US Patent No. 7,659,851 entitled Radio frequency certificates of authenticity and related scanners, which describes a method to increase the security of radiofrequency identification (RFID) procedures. One example described in the patent is a scanner consisting of an array of miniaturised antenna elements which can read a unique electromagnetic fingerprint that is linked to a product and is "computationally infeasible to fake".  The certificate of authenticity (CoA) cannot be physically copied or counterfeited based only on possession of the electromagnetic fingerprint, it says.

- Secure Logistics Sweden AB has been awarded US Patent No. 7,659,816 for a type of tamper-evident seal that can be used to secure a container or package. The technology described in the patent - entitled Method and a device for detecting intrusion into or tampering with contents of an enclosure - involves the use of a gas-proof seal which when ruptured by opening the container causes an irreversible change to a sensor. The change in the atmosphere in the inner chamber can also cause a signal to be sent to a detector via RFID, cellular telephone or some other communication system.

- SABIC Innovative Plastics IP of the Netherlands has been granted US Patent No. 7,645,884 - Chemical compositions for authenticatable polymers and articles, and authentication methods thereof - in which a polymer used in plastics manufacture incorporates a thermally-stable marker (a benzo[4,5]imidazo(heterocycle) compound) that can be used to authenticate pharmaceutical packaging, security documents and other items. The taggants described in the patent can be added to polymers during high-temperature production, such as moulding and extrusion, yet retain their activity.

- Illumina Inc has been granted US Patent No. 7,619,819 for a method of tracking pharmaceuticals and other products through the supply chain using an optical identification system that is small, can carry more than a million coding variations and is flexible and bendable. The patent is entitled Method and apparatus for drug product tracking using encoded optical identification elements. The label includes an intrinsic diffraction grating and can be used for many different purposes, such as "sorting, tracking, identification, verification, authentication, anti-theft/anti-counterfeit, security/anti-terrorism, or for other purposes," according to the patent.


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