'Watermarking' protects against counterfeiting

Paul Boughton

A team of researchers at WMG at the University of Warwick in the IK have devised a novel way to add anti-counterfeiting to plastic products during the moulding process.

According to the researchers, the process could cost less than one per cent of the total cost of manufacturing the product.

Lead researcher Professor Gordon Smith says: "There is an enormous amount of interest in anti-counterfeiting technology for plastic products. We at the University of Warwick are working on several processes to prevent plastic components being copied and this in-mould process is the first of them to be developed for use.

"For commercial reasons we cannot detail collaborators but we are now exploring its use with one company that is plagued by the failure of a counterfeit plastic based safety critical product which is made to look exactly like their safety critical product and therefore damages their reputation as well as losing them sales."

The 'watermark' is created as an intrinsic part of the plastic product while it is being moulded. It would require very detailed technical knowledge and equipment to even attempt to replicate the 'watermark' process.

Professor Smith expects that the new technology will be of significant interest to a range of manufacturers' products such as DVDs and other discs in the entertainment and computing markets, as well as plastic containers used by a range of consumer industries.

University of Warwick

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