Detection of Counterfeit by the Usage of Product Inherent Features

One aspect of the economical dimension of sustainable business development is the protection of high value products from counterfeiting. This holds especially true for consumer goods since the sustainable manufacturing process gains a more and more important role, e.g. in the creation of a brand image. In this paper we propose a method for detecting counterfeit by capture of inherent features indissolubly linked with the product induced by the production process itself. Since a counterfeiter gains margin by the use of inferior production processes and material the differences between genuine product and counterfeit can be captured in an automated fashion. The proposed method not only renders the application of artificial security tags obsolete which helps reducing the material usage but also gives enhanced protection against counterfeiting as the inherent characteristics cannot be removed from the article.