Scientific Discoveries & Scientific Applications

When ink is sprayed on any surface such as a piece of paper, under the effect of infiltrative force (also known as diffusive force), the inkblot is bound to soak into (also known as spread) the surface before it dries up, thereby randomly forming many microscopic jaggies (also known as burrs) along the edges of the blot, which is an inevitable phenomenon of natural infiltration. Take a microscopic picture of every unique QR code and the jaggies on the edges of its blot and save it in the cloud database as an anti-counterfeiting record, which may be used for authenticity verification. Microscopic jaggies are naturally formed random physical characteristic that is random, unique and irreproducible. One can accurately distinguishing counterfeits from the real thing by check if the microscopic jaggies match using AI image recognition technology.
  • Printing House
  • Spray print part of the QR code on a diffusant coating, let the edges of the inkblot spread naturally to form microscopic jaggies of random shapes, leave it to dry and settle.Then, take a microscopic picture of parts of every QR code, see Figure 1.
  • Micro-Texture Anti-Counterfeiting Firm
  • Save the microscopic pictures that the printing house take in the cloud database as an anti-counterfeiting file photo, run AI image recognition for the pictures taken and uploaded by consumers and identify whether they are fake or not.
  • Consumers
  • Scan the QR code with their cell phones and upload them to the cloud database. The AI image recognition system will compare the pictures uploaded to the file photos for image feature matching. If the microscopic characteristics of the two pictures, such as the jaggies, are consistent, the system will come up with a conclusion of “Authentic” and send the message to the consumers, otherwise the conclusion will be “Fake” and the message will also be sent to the consumers.

Identification Method

No need to download specific anti-counterfeiting APP, any ordinary smart phone can get the job done, such as smart phones installed with WeChat, Alipay, etc.
  • Feedback on
  • When the microscopic features such as blot jaggies match: Authentic
  • When the microscopic features such as blot jaggies do not match: Fake
  • When the pictures cannot be recognized for they are too blurry: Please take another photo
  • Why is it irreproducible
  • It’s inevitable for the blot edges to spread randomly and produce microscopic jaggies in ink printing. Even if the counterfeiters try to copy the jaggies at all costs and platemaking, the inkblots will still spread and form new jaggies that are different from the ones they try to copy.

Advantages in Anti-Counterfeiting

Microscopic anti-counterfeiting characteristics such as blot jaggies are formed by natural diffusion and may not be reproduced. There’s no need to deliberately keeping secret of the file photos saved (for even if they get the source photo, they won’t be able to copy it). Compared to it, the mainstream mathematical anti-counterfeiting technology products, such as digital anti-counterfeiting, encrypted QR code anti-counterfeiting and so on, are all reproducible. From the perspective of manufacturing, micro-texture anti-counterfeiting only requires you to take the microscopic picture of the blot edges and there’s hardly any other process needed, thus enjoys the advantage of “Actionless Governance” . With the ever increasing pixel of phone camera, launching of 5G network and upgrading of AI image recognition technology, micro-texture anti-counterfeiting will become increasingly practical and efficient.