The invention provides formulations and masterbatches of a polymeric material and XRF-identifiable markers, for producing transparent elements including a polymer and at least one XRF-identifiable marker for a variety of industrial uses.

A composition including a first color shifting pigment having a first color shift that extends from a starting color at normal through a plurality of colors as a viewing angle is increased to a final color, wherein the first color shift rotates counterclockwise relative to, and about, an origin of the L*a*b* color space; and a color filter that transmits a portion of the first color shift of the first color shifting pigment and absorbs a remainder of the first color shift of the first color shifting pigment; wherein the composition has a second color shift different from the first color shift; and wherein the second color shift has a first portion that rotates counterclockwise relative to the origin and a second portion that rotates clockwise relative to the origin is disclosed. A security device including the composition is included. A method of making the composition and a method of authenticating the security device are also disclosed.

A sensor and a method for checking value documents are provided, each having a luminescent sheet-like substrate and a luminescent feature applied to a partial surface of the substrate, and to a value document processing apparatus. From the spectral vectors obtained for a plurality of measurement points and characterizing the intensity of the luminescent radiation of the value document detected in at least two spectral ranges, substrate intensity values and feature intensity values are determined, based on which a pure substrate mask is determined, which contains only those measurement points which reliably lie outside the feature. From the spectral vectors of the measurement points contained in the pure substrate mask, a mean substrate vector is determined, based on which corrected substrate intensity values and corrected feature intensity values and/or a spectral signature of the substrate and/or of the feature are or is, respectively, determined from the spectral vectors.

A device comprising: an optical emitter for emitting light having an emitted optical spectrum; an optical sensor for receiving light reflected from a tag attached to an object; and a processor configured to: determine a reflected optical colour spectrum of the light reflected from the tag based on an output of the optical sensor; retrieve an optical signature associated with said object from memory; and determine the authenticity of said object based on comparing the optical signature and the reflected optical colour spectrum.

A method of verifying an authenticity of a printed item includes: photographing the printed item to obtain a photographic image of the printed item, retrieving reference data of the printed item, the reference data including a reference image of the printed item, determining a test noise parameter from the photographic image of the printed item, determining a reference noise parameter from the reference image, comparing the test noise parameter of the photographic image of the printed item to the reference noise parameter of the reference image, and determining an authenticity of the printed item from a result of the comparing. The determining the authenticity of the printed item from the result of the comparing may include establishing from the reference noise parameter of the reference image and the test noise parameter of the printed item.

This disclosure relates to tagging of materials and objects and analysis for authentication thereof. An example method includes analyzing separately a number of locations distributed across a given surface of a solid object according to one or more analysis technologies to determine feature data for each of the locations. The feature data are indicative of a respective chemical property and/or mechanical property of the solid object at each of the locations, corresponding to a feature tag, and the feature data depend on the one or more analysis technologies. The method also includes determining a tag signature for the solid object based on the feature data determined for each of the locations.

Optical tags provide a way to identify assets quickly and unambiguously, an application relevant to anti-counterfeiting and protection of valuable resources or information. The present invention is directed to a tag fluorophore that encodes multilayer complexity in a family of heterometallic rare-earth metal-organic frameworks (RE-MOFs) based on highly connected polynuclear clusters and carboxylic acid-based linkers. Both overt (visible) and covert (near infrared, NIR) properties with concomitant multi-emissive spectra and tunable luminescence lifetimes impart both intricacy and security. Tag authentication can be validated with a variety of orthogonal detection methodologies. The relationships between structure, composition, and optical properties of the family of RE-MOFs can be used to create a large library of rationally designed, highly complex, difficult to counterfeit optical tags.

An identification apparatus or system includes an estimation unit that estimates an operating distance between the surface of an optical device and an imaging unit as an estimated value. A reference distance refers to the distance between a first face of an identification target and the imaging unit and at which light diffracted by a diffraction grating is capable of being recorded by the imaging unit. A first determination unit is included that determines whether the estimated value matches the reference distance and a second determination unit that determines whether an image captured by the imaging unit matches a reference image. Conditions for identifying the optical device as the identification target include a condition that the first determination unit determines that the estimated value matches the reference distance and a condition that the second determination unit determines that the image captured by the imaging unit matches the reference image.

An identification method for identifying a target to be measured includes accepting, from an input section, an information representing a condition for acquiring spectral information specific to a target to be measured, capturing, by a spectrometry camera, an image of the target, acquiring the spectral information specific to the target based on the captured image, and identifying the target based on (i) the spectral information and (ii) a database, stored in a memory, containing a plurality of pieces of spectral information corresponding to a plurality of objects. Acquiring the spectral information includes preferentially acquiring the spectral information specific to the target in a specific wavelength region where the target is identifiable.

AMENDMENT TO THE ABSTRACT Please replace the Abstract in the application with the following Abstract, insert the following after the claims:

ABSTRACT A method for checking value documents, in particular with regard to their authenticity and/or with regard to their value-document type, involves the following steps: detecting a first plurality of intensity courses on a value document, combining the first plurality of intensity courses or a second plurality of intensity courses selected from the first plurality into a combined intensity course, determining a time constant τ of the combined intensity course, checking the value document based on the time constant τ of the combined intensity course. A corresponding sensor is provided for checking value documents, and an apparatus enables value-document processing with the aforementioned sensor.