Methods and apparatuses for creating authenticatable printed articles and subsequently verifying them
A printer with integral scanner obtains a digital signature from an article as it is printed. The integral scanner has a coherent source which directs a light beam to illuminate the article and a detector arrangement to collect data points from light scattered from many different parts of the article to collect a large number of independent data points. The digital signature derived from the data points is stored in a database with an image of what was printed on the article. The authenticity of an article purported to be the originally printed article can be verified by scanning the purported genuine article to obtain its digital signature. The database is then searched, to establish whether there is a match. If a match is found, the image is displayed with the matched digital signature to allow a further visual check that the article is genuine.
1. An apparatus for creating authenticatable articles, comprising:
a printer driver that creates instructions for a printing device to print an image;
a data acquisition interface that receives a set comprising groups of data points from a printing device comprising:
a feed mechanism that conveys an article through the printing device; and
a scan head that scans an article conveyed through the printing device by the feed mechanism, the scan head comprising:
a coherent source that emits light as an article is conveyed past the scan head by the feed mechanism so as to sequentially illuminate a plurality of regions of an article; and
a detector arrangement that detects light scattered from surface structure of the article so as to collect a set comprising groups of data points wherein each of the groups of data points relates to scatter caused by surface structure from the respective different regions of the surface of the article;
and
a processor that processes the set of groups of data points to determine a digital signature of the article and processes the digital signature to determine a printable label pattern that encodes the digital signature according to a machine-readable encoding protocol; and
wherein the printer driver further creates instructions for the printing device to print the label pattern onto the article.
2. An apparatus for verifying the authenticity of articles, comprising:
a scanning device that scans an article conveyed relative to the scanning device, the scanning device comprising:
a coherent source that emits light as an article is conveyed relative to the scanning device by the feed mechanism so as to sequentially illuminate a plurality of regions of an article; and
a detector arrangement that detects light scattered from surface structure of the article so as to collect a set comprising groups of data points wherein each of the groups of data points relates to scatter caused by surface structure from the respective different regions of the surface of the article;
a processor that processes the set of groups of data point to determine a digital signature of the article;
a reading device that reads a printed label from the article;
a decoder that decodes the read label to extract a previously determined signature for the article; and
a signature verification module that compares the determined digital signature and the previously determined digital signature to establish whether a match exists.
3. Apparatus comprising:
an article transport that conveys articles to be printed along an article transport path;
an article scanner arranged adjacent the article transport path, the article scanner comprising:
a light source that emits coherent light as an article is conveyed along the article transport path relative to the article scanner, thereby sequentially illuminating a plurality of regions of an article; and
a detector arrangement that detects light scattered from surface structure of an article illuminated by light from the light source and creates a set of data points describing the light intensity received at the detector arrangement, the detector arrangement sequentially outputting the set of data points in groups of data points wherein each group of data points relates to scatter caused by surface structure from a respective different region of the surface of the article;
a processor that receives the set of groups of data points and processes the set of groups of data points to determine a digital signature of the article and that processes the digital signature to determine a printable label pattern that encodes the digital signature according to a machine-readable encoding protocol; and
a print head that prints the label pattern onto the article.
4. The apparatus of claim 3 , further comprising:
a reading device that reads a printed label from an article conveyed along the article transport path;
a decoder that decodes the read label to extract a previously determined signature for the article; and
a signature verification module that compares the determined digital signature and the previously determined digital signature to establish whether a match exists.
5. An apparatus for creating authenticatable articles, comprising:
a printer driver that creates instructions for a printing device to print an image;
a data acquisition interface that receives a set comprising groups of data points from a printing device comprising:
a feed mechanism that conveys an article past the print head; and
a scan head that scans an article conveyed through the printing device by the feed mechanism, the scan head comprising:
a coherent source that emits light as an article is conveyed past the scan head by the feed mechanism to sequentially illuminate each of a plurality of regions of a surface of an article; and
a detector arrangement, that detects light scattered from surface structure of the article to collect a set comprising groups of data points wherein each of the groups of data points relates to scatter caused by surface structure from the respective different regions of the surface of the article; and
a processor that that processes the set of groups of data points to determine a digital signature of the article and creates a record in a database, wherein the record includes the digital signature and a representation of the image.
6. An apparatus for verifying the authenticity of articles, comprising:
a scanning device that scans an article conveyed relative to the scanning device, the scanning device comprising:
a coherent source that emits light as an article is conveyed relative to the scanning device by the feed mechanism so as to sequentially illuminate a plurality of regions of a surface of an article; and
a detector arrangement that detects light scattered from surface structure of the article so as to collect a set comprising groups of data points wherein each of the groups of data points relates to scatter caused by surface structure from the respective different regions of the surface of the article;
a processor that processes the set of groups of data point to determine a digital signature of the article;
a database comprising a plurality of records of previously scanned articles, each record including the digital signature previously determined for that article and a visual representation of that article; and
a signature verification module that searches the database to establish whether there is a match between a digital signature obtained by the scanning device and a digital signature stored in one of the records, and that displays, if a match is found, the visual representation of the article stored in the record with the match.
7. Apparatus comprising:
an article transport that conveys articles to be printed along an article transport path;
an article scanner arranged adjacent the article transport path, the article scanner comprising:
a light source that emits coherent light as an article is conveyed along the article transport path relative to the article scanner, thereby sequentially illuminating a plurality of regions of an article; and
a detector arrangement that detects light scattered from surface structure of an article illuminated by light from the light source and creates a set of data points describing the light intensity received at the detector arrangement, the detector arrangement sequentially outputting the set of data points in groups of data points wherein each group of data points relates to scatter caused by surface structure from a respective different region of the surface of the article;
a processor that receives the set of groups of data points and processes the set of groups of data points to determine a digital signature of the article and that sends the digital signature and a visual representation of the article to be stored to a database.
8. The apparatus of claim 7 , further comprising:
a signature verification module that searches the database to establish whether there is a match between a digital signature obtained by the scanning device and a digital signature stored in a record of the database, and that displays, if a match is found, the visual representation of the article stored in the record with the match.