Today, we are all faced with better quality fakes, accessible through a flexible and ‘self-healing’ network of online sellers, with prices no different from your average flash sale, and carrying QR codes linked to the original websites of original brands – regardless of whether that brand uses QR codes or not. All of these factors combine to subtly persuade consumers of the originality of a product.

Addressing the increasing demand for a simple user experience for configuring and pairing IoT devices, Infineon Technologies has launched the OPTIGA™ Authenticate NBT, an NFC I2C bridge tag for contactless authentication and secured configuration.

Traceability is far from a new concept. In the 1930s, it certified the origin of premium goods like French champagne. Today, it is more relevant than ever.

Over the last few years, the corporate agenda has increased demand for secure and sustainable brand protection solutions. Authentication & Brand News™ reported a few such developments in the March 2024 issue and, moving forward, is sharing Crane Authentication’s latest announcement.

Texas-based security solutions provider Authentix has acquired the authentication business assets of Meta Materials – namely, Nanotech Security Corporation (NSC) – for $10 million, excluding certain assets such as cash and real estate.

Marks & Spencer (M&S), a leading, own- brand UK retailer, has teamed up with Polytag, a recycling technology company, to enable M&S to trace what happens to its drinks bottles, cartons and other plastic packaging.

A team of researchers from Western University, Canada, has developed a new type of persistent luminescence nanomaterial using the Canadian Light Source synchrotron (a type of circular particle accelerator).

In collaboration with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and the National Institute for Materials Science, a research team, including Hitachi scientists, has developed image acquisition and defocusing correction techniques to observe atomic-scale magnetic fields using a Hitachi holographic electron microscope at a resolution of 0.47nm.

Differentiating between AI and ‘real’ content in California, the EU adopts a new product sustainability rule, and the US Federal Communications Commission votes to create a cybersecurity labelling programme for IoT devices.

Famous writer and fisherman A K Best said it best – pardon the pun – with his quote: ‘the fishing was good, it was the catching that was bad’. Although he was not referring to traceability systems, the quote sums up one of the main reasons for implementing traceability on seafood: to prevent non-compliant fishing practices.

Reconnaissance International – the leading global source of business intelligence on currency, identity, authentication and traceability – has unveiled a new industry reference glossary.

According to a new research report published in the journal Langmuir, scientists have successfully developed a new photopatterning technique that creates two light-reactive images in one material.

De La Rue, the banknote printer and substrate manufacturer, authentication solutions provider and producer of security holograms, has announced it is in discussions with several parties interested in acquiring one or both of its divisions: Authentication and Currency.

With a focus on developing high end security pigments, Luminochem has released a demo video showing how its LuminoMark UV fluorescent pigments can be applied on medicine blisters for brand protection.

Macau is facing the common crime of counterfeit casino chips. In the latest incident, police arrested five men for defrauding a casino using 585 counterfeit chips. Each chip was marked with a denomination of HK$10,000 ($1,280), tricking the casino out of at least HK$1.8 million.

Following on from last month’s Authentication & Brand News™ article on the mass counterfeiting of barcoded postage stamps in the UK, a woman from California, USA, has pleaded guilty to defrauding the United States Postal Service (USPS) out of more than $150 million in a counterfeit postage scam in Los Angeles.

At the recent World Seed Congress in the Netherlands, the International Seed Federation (ISF) signed what is being hailed as an ‘historic agreement’ with 12 organisations to combat illegal seed practices.

According to McKinsey, the global radio frequency identification (RFID) technology market will reach $97.5 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 14.4% between 2022-2030.

At the Optical & Digital Document Security (ODDS) conference in April, Michael Natan, President of Diametryx Inc, presented this new company’s intriguing colour-change particles for use as an overt security feature.

Xeikon, a provider of digital printing presses, has partnered with KURZ and SCRIBOS (part of the KURZ group) to offer a solution that enables digital label printers to combine variable metallic elements, serialised QR codes with embedded copy- protection patterns, and interactive features… all in a single printing pass.