Provenance tracking using genetic material
Systems and methods for provenance tracking and/or identification of a product using genetic material are claimed. In various embodiments, genetic material such as plasmids may be incorporated into and/or otherwise persistently associated with a product. The genetic material may be encoded with, among other things, information that may uniquely identify the product, provide details relating to the origins of the product, the handling, distribution, and/or chain of custody of the product, intellectual property rights and/or other rights associated with the product, and/or the like. By extracting and analyzing the genetic material from the product, information encoded in the genetic material may be obtained by an interested party.
1. A method for securely associating information with a product, the method comprising:
generating initial product information associated with the product;
electronically associating the initial product information with tag information, the tag information being encoded in genetic material included in a genetic tag, the genetic material comprising at least one of a plasmid and a bacterium;
transmitting the electronically associated initial product information and tag information to a remote trusted authority system for storage; and
depositing the genetic tag on the product using a genetic material deposition device.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises retrieving the tag information.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag information is encoded in a genetic sequence of the genetic material included in the genetic tag.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag information comprises a unique string value associated with the genetic tag.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag information comprises location information associated with the remote trusted authority system.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag information comprises information that is used to retrieve the initial product information from the remote trusted authority system.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein electronically associating the initial product information with the tag information comprises securely associating the initial product information with the tag information.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein securely associating the initial product information with the tag information comprises cryptographically associating the initial product information with the tag information and wherein transmitting the electronically associated initial product information and tag information comprises transmitting the cryptographically associated initial product information and tag information to the remote trusted authority system for storage.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein depositing the genetic tag on the product comprises depositing the genetic tag proximate to a location marker on the product.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the location marker comprises at least one of a visible location marker, an ultraviolet location marker, and a textural location marker.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein depositing the genetic tag on the product comprises introducing the genetic material into at least one cell of the product.
12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the product comprises at least one of an agricultural product and a live cell line product.
13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the genetic material deposition device comprises a biolistic particle delivery device.
14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the genetic material deposition device comprises an electrostatic genetic material deposition device.
15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the initial product information comprises product provenance information.
16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the initial product information comprises product ownership information.
17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the initial product information comprises product description information.
18. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises synthesizing the genetic material to generate the genetic tag.
19. The method of claim 18 , wherein synthesizing the genetic material comprises encoding the tag information in at least one genetic sequence of the genetic material.
20. The method of claim 19 , wherein encoding the tag information in the at least one genetic sequence comprises encoding the tag information in the at least one genetic sequence using, at least in part, a translation code.