A tag to promote brand recognition
Brand counterfeiting is a big business, involving organised criminals and international distribution networks. New technology from a UK start-up aims to stop the flourishing market in counterfeit goods with a patented tag that will confirm goods as genuine.
The company, Flying Null, has just raised £5m in funding to take its ideas to market. The company's magnetic tags can be attached to goods and then detected by a special reader. Goods with the tags are genuine; those without the tags are counterfeit.
Although some of the tags are designed to be placed on boxes, pallets, trays and other large forms of packaging, the company has also produced smaller tags suitable for individual goods. These include the Transfer Tag, which is 25 times thinner than a human hair.
One of the sectors the company is targeting is pharmaceuticals, where counterfeiters are trying to cash in on the success of big name brands such as Viagra and Prozac.
Worth watching
By Fiona Harvey
FT.com site; Sep 22, 2003
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заметка в основном про использование маркеров в борьбе с подделками, но на их сайте есть много других примеров использования маркеров (как их называть - тэги? html всё занял... таги?)
