Object marking for optical authentication and method for producing same

Abstract

Object marking, and method for producing same, for optical authentication of an object, wherein at least one section of a material piece of a basic material is determined arbitrarily or randomly and the object marking is produced with the at least one section, and wherein the basic material of the material piece has a repeating security feature having optical properties dependent on the viewing angle, the dimensions of said security feature being larger than the dimensions of the section, more particularly larger than the dimensions of the object marking, such that each section is unique and has only a part of the security feature.

Claims

1. A method for producing an object marking for optical authentication of an object comprising: randomly determining at least one section of a material piece of a basic material, the section having dimensions; producing an object marking comprising the at least one section; wherein the basic material of the material piece has a repeating security feature having optical properties dependent on the viewing angle; wherein the security feature has larger dimensions than the section dimensions such that each section is unique and comprises only a part of the security feature; and wherein at least one randomly determined part of the material piece is removed prior to the production of the object marking.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the security feature has larger dimensions than the object marking.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the security feature of the basic material is an optically variable feature.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the security feature of the basic material is a hologram.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the security feature and/or its optical properties have dimensions which correspond at least to a resolving power of a human eye.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the security feature and/or its optical properties have dimensions that correspond to a resolving power of a commercially available camera, such that the security feature is readable and verifiable with a commercially available camera.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the material piece is designed in the form of a band, and a position of the band is selected by a random or non-controlled advance of the band and the section is determined in relation to the selected position.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the advance of the band deviates from the period of the security feature of the basic material.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the section is determined by a variable, random selection mask, wherein the section is determined either in correspondence with a region of the material piece masked by the selection mask or in correspondence with a region of the material piece unmasked or spared by the selection mask.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the variable selection mask is applied on the material piece in the form of a partial cover.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the variable selection mask is applied on the material piece in the form of a layer applied in places or in regions.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one randomly determined part of the material piece is removed prior to the determining of the section.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one further section of the same material piece or of a further material piece of the basic material is determined arbitrarily or randomly and the object marking is produced with the at least two sections.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the at least two sections are mixed with an at least temporarily liquid or paste-like carrier mass which is applied on the object directly or indirectly.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one section is applied on a carrier material for producing the object marking.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the object marking is connected with the object, wherein the object marking is arranged variably and randomly with respect to the object or an orientation mark applied on the object.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the properties generated by the random arrangement of the object marking are determinable and readable with a commercially available camera.

18. A method for producing an object marking for optical authentication of an object comprising: randomly determining at least one section of a material piece of a basic material, the section having dimensions; producing an object marking comprising the at least one section; wherein the basic material of the material piece has a repeating security feature having optical properties dependent on the viewing angle; wherein the security feature has larger dimensions than the section dimensions such that each section is unique and comprises only a part of the security feature; and wherein at least one further section of the same material piece or of a further material piece of the basic material is determined arbitrarily or randomly and the object marking is produced with the at least two sections.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the security feature of the basic material is an optically variable feature.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the at least one section is applied on a carrier material for producing the object marking.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) In the following, the invention will be explained further by means of particularly preferred embodiments to which it is not to be restricted, though, and with reference to the drawing. The drawing illustrates in detail in:

(2) FIG. 1 schematically a material piece of a basic material having optical properties dependent on the viewing angle;

(3) FIG. 2 schematically a number of examples of material pieces of different basic materials under different viewing angles;

(4) FIG. 3 schematically the selection of a section of a material piece pursuant to FIG. 2 for producing an object marking;

(5) FIG. 4 schematically three sequentially selected sections of a material piece in accordance with a random advance;

(6) FIG. 5 for comparison schematically three sequentially selected sections of a material piece in accordance with a constant advance;

(7) FIG. 6 schematically a period of a security feature of a material piece;

(8) FIG. 7 schematically the application of different selection masks to one and the same selection of the material piece for producing different object markings;

(9) FIG. 8 schematically the combination of the sections of three material pieces defined in accordance with different selection masks to form an object marking; and

(10) FIG. 9 schematically a fragmentation of a plurality of material pieces and the combination of sections in the form of pieces of each material piece to form an object marking.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

(11) FIG. 1 illustrates a material piece 1 of a basic material, wherein a region 2 of the material piece is illustrated in accordance with its appearance under a first viewing angle α (indicated schematically by the eye 3 of the observer) and in accordance with its appearance under a second viewing angle β. The arrow 4 indicates schematically a change of the viewing angle between the illustrations α, β (cf. FIG. 2). For protection from two-dimensional copies, a plurality of security features 5 are arranged on the material piece 1, which each have different appearances and/or more generally different optical properties under different viewing angles α, β. The security features 5 may, for instance, correspond to machine-readable patterns or signals. A change 4 of the viewing angle on the material piece 1 thus causes, for instance, a change of the illustrated pattern and/or sign, its coloring and/or its visibility.

(12) In order to enable the evaluation with the aid of a commercially available programmable device, such as a smart phone, the optical properties, such as patterns and/or signs, must have certain properties. They must, for instance, have a minimum size of 100 μm×100 μm. Moreover, a sufficiently high contrast between the properties and their background is required for the computer-aided image processing. This may be expressed by differences in brightness, advantageously, however, in their coloring or other optical properties. The patterns used may comprise the most different characteristics, as is illustrated in FIG. 2. Thus, geometric figures are as suited as the illustration of different signs. Examples of such basic materials are materials with holograms, lenticular materials, saw tooth foils, or foils for restricting the viewing angle.

(13) FIG. 3 illustrates the production of an object marking 6 by the application 7 of a section 8 in accordance with a selected region 9 of the material piece 1. The section 8 may be applied on an object 10 by different methods, such as cold or hot embossing technologies, wherein the object 10 may also be a carrier material belonging to the object marking 6. The method used for application 7 is predominantly dependent on the nature of the object 10 and/or the material piece 1, such as heat sensitivity or surface structure.

(14) Increased protection from copying with the aid of identical production resources is achieved by the use of a random application 7. In this process, a region 9 of the material piece 1 is selected arbitrarily and the section 8 of the material piece 1 which corresponds to the region 9 is applied on the object 10. In the case of a cold or hot embossing method the selection of the region 9 and the application 7 are one process step. The material piece 1 is available in the form of a continuous foil of the basic material, wherein the embossing method does not register the positioning of the material piece 1, such that the region 9 is selected by an arbitrary material advance and the corresponding section 8 is applied on the object 10.

(15) In order that the security features 5′ applied on the object 10 can be referred to for authentication in combination with a unique series number 11, care is taken when selecting the basic material that the security features 5 contained thereon have sufficiently high variation and a period exceeding the dimensions of the region 9. Since such materials, for instance, holograms, regularly have periodically repeating patterns, a sufficiently arbitrary selection with a given period may be achieved by the choice of a suitable size of the region 9 and by a suitable material advance 12 (cf. FIG. 4).

(16) The actual variation, i.e.—broadly speaking—the number of sections to be produced until a pattern repeats, is calculated by the lowest common multiple of the period of the pattern of the basic material and the selected dimension of the material advance 12, 12′, unless further measures are applied for varying the sections and/or the object markings. FIGS. 4 and 5 illustrate the possible effects of a favorable (FIG. 4) and/or unfavorable (FIG. 5) choice of these parameters. In FIG. 4 some advantageous regions 9 of the material piece 1 are indicated which are selected by a variable random material advance 12 and result in a variation of the resulting sections 8 and hence the object markings 6. In FIG. 5 the most unfavorable possible selection of regions 9 of the material piece 1 is illustrated, wherein the material advance 12′ corresponds exactly to the period of the security features, such that always the same region is selected and thus always the same section 8 is used for the production of the object markings 6.

(17) The security features 5 dependent on the viewing angle and the optical properties of the basic material may be completely different patterns or variations of a pattern and/or sign, for instance, by rotation or perspective projection of the same pattern. The use of rotation and projection yields advantages with the storing of the digital object properties since a smaller quantity of data is required due to better compressibility.

(18) If the period of the (unchanged) security feature is relatively small and/or only slightly larger than the dimensions of the object marking to be produced, i.e. if the security feature (e.g. the pattern) on the material piece 1 repeats in short periodic intervals 13, as illustrated in FIG. 6, only little variation is achieved with the hitherto described methods. An increase in variation is achieved by the method for producing an object marking by a plurality of sections 14 of a material piece 1, illustrated schematically in FIG. 7. Here, from a region 9 selected in a first step 15, only the sections 14 corresponding to a selection mask 16 are applied on the object 10 in a second step 17. Since a static selection mask 16 does not result in an improvement of the variation, but merely in a smaller area of the same selection, the pattern of taking 18 of the selection mask 16 is always changed. Due to the variable selection masks 16, 16′ a new combination of security features and hence different object markings 6 are applied on the objects 10 even with identical selection of the region 9. By the different selection masks 16 and 16′ such a change is illustrated schematically and may be achieved with an embossing method, for instance, by the rotation of a stamp. The use of digital embossing methods is more advantageous, wherein, for instance, the embossing punch is changed dynamically or the adhesive is applied dynamically.

(19) An alternative or additional approach for the dynamic selection of a plurality of sections 8 of a material piece 1 without separating it is a partial covering by a further material. Here, a material section corresponding to the entire selected region 9 is applied on the object 10 and overlapped by a covering material having the form of a selection mask 16. The covering material may, for instance, be a color layer which is applied by a digital printing method. Overlapping may be performed before or after the selection of the material section.

(20) A further increase in variations and in the end also in security is possible by the method for producing an object marking 6 by a plurality of sections 8 of a plurality of independent material pieces 1, as illustrated in FIG. 8. Due to the use of different basic materials and/or materials with different security features the achieved variation of the resulting object marking is many times higher and a copy is thus more difficult to obtain. The security features corresponding to the sections 8 and hence the object marking 6 have an optical appearance which differs with a change 4 of the viewing angle α, β.

(21) The variation of the security features may moreover be increased by a repeated use of a, i.e. one and the same, material piece 1. Thus, for instance, a material piece 1 which has already been used comprises gaps having an influence on the resulting sections 8 during further use.

(22) Furthermore, an increase in the variations is moreover possible by the removal of arbitrary sections prior to the selection of a region 9 and/or the application 7, 17 of the selected section 8 of the material piece 1. Thus, it is, for instance, possible to punch arbitrary patterns out of a foil before it is applied.

(23) Moreover, a further property usable for authentication may be introduced by a variation of the position of the object marking 6 relative to the object 10 itself or an orientation mark 19 applied on the object 10 (cf. FIG. 3).

(24) The indirect application illustrated schematically in FIG. 9 is an alternative method for producing an object marking in the scope of the invention. Here, in a first step 20 at least one material piece 1 having optical properties dependent on the viewing angle and/or security features is divided into small parts and/or sections 21 which are applied arbitrarily on the object 10 in a second step. This may, for instance, be implemented by the chaffing of a hologram foil, the mixing of the resulting small parts 21 with a fluid or paste-like carrier mass, such as a varnish, and the application of the carrier mass along with the small parts 21 with the aid of a printing method. In order to enable the readability of the object marking produced this way with the aid of a commercially available programmable device with a camera, it has turned out favorable if the resulting small parts 21 have a minimum diameter of 100 μm. Examples of suitable basic materials having properties dependent on the viewing angle are: holograms, lenticular materials, saw tooth foils, or foils for restricting the viewing angle.

(25) A variant of the method for producing an object marking by means of indirect application in accordance with the invention is the incorporation of the material parts and/or sections 21 of at least one material piece 1 in a foil (not illustrated), from which foil subsequently at least one arbitrary region is selected and a corresponding section of the foil is applied on the object 10.

(26) If an application of the parts and/or sections 21 by embedding in a further material, i.e. a carrier material, with sufficient material strength is chosen, it is in particular possible to also use materials which themselves do not have any properties dependent on the viewing angle. This is based on the fact that the parts 21, with sufficient material strength of the embedding and/or surrounding material, may have different orientations, i.e. orientations which are generally not parallel to the object surface, so that properties dependent on the viewing angle result for the entirety of the arrangement. An example thereof are parts 21 of a reflecting material which are fragmented, e.g. chaffed, and incorporated in a foil. Depending on the viewing angle the foil such produced thus has different reflecting properties.