EP2035236A2

EP2035236A2 - Personalization method for the creation of a wavy character pattern, and personalized security document

Info

Publication number: EP2035236A2
Application number: EP07765611A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Werner Buchmeier; Torsten Janke; Michael Wanjek
Original assignee: Muehlbauer GmbH and Co KG
Current assignee: Muehlbauer GmbH and Co KG
Priority date: 2006-06-27
Filing date: 2007-06-26
Publication date: 2009-03-18
Anticipated expiration: 2027-06-26
Also published as: DE502007007135D1; DE102006029798A1; WO2008000728A3; WO2008000728A2; ATE507985T1; EP2035236B1

Abstract

The invention relates to a personalization method for creating at least one wavy character pattern (1 to 9) from characters that are arranged in at least one row on a plastic or paper substrate of a security document, particularly a person's passport. Said method comprises the following steps: - certain person-specific data is selected among an amount of stored person-specific data associated with a specific person; - at least some of the selected person-specific data is assigned to predetermined positions in order to create at least one portion of a wavy virtual character pattern that is arranged in one or several rows and contains at least some character pattern data; - a laser apparatus is programmed with the character pattern data; - the characters that are based on the character pattern data are burned in by means of a laser beam of the laser apparatus which can be moved along a surface of the plastic or paper substrate in order to create a portion of the real wavy character pattern that is arranged in one or several rows.

Description

Personalization method for generating a wavy character image and personalized security document

description

The invention relates to a personalization method for generating at least one wave-shaped character image from at least one row arranged characters on a plastic or paper substrate of a security document, in particular a personal passport, and a personalized security document according to the O- berbegriffen of claims 1 and 13.

In order to make security documents, such as passports, identity cards or ID cards, which have a printed paper side with laminated plastic films, more secure against forgery, security features are usually applied to the paper side or the paper substrate and / or onto or into the plastic film or the plastic substrate. or introduced. There are various types of security features known, such as tilting images, which are arranged within the plastic substrate to give rise to different images at different angles of tilt of the document with respect to the viewing direction. Likewise, there are UV images or so-called micro-lettering.

Such a micro-typeface is characterized in that the text thus written, which as a rule consists of letters and numbers or numbers, can not be read by the naked eye, but rather can only be recognized as a line. In general, such micro-lettering during the printing process when printing a background of the paper side mitaufgebracht by an inkjet printer, wherein the paper side is then welded or laminated in the plastic film. Alternatively, the The paper-covering plastic film is mirror-inverted by means of the inkjet printer with the image to be printed and then applied to the paper side, for example in the form of a lamination.

Such microfonts are designed for fake security reasons not only as straight lines, but also wavy, it should be noted that the naked eye recognizes the micro-lettering only as a line.

If someone tries to fake or copy such a document by a simple copying process, due to the small dimensions of the micro-font would only create a wavy line that can be seen with the aid of magnifying means that the lines no longer contain micro-fonts.

Conventionally, in such conventional printing operations, the characters used as microfonts are always the same for each security document which goes through a personalization system in addition to a large number of other security documents at high speed.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a personalization method for generating at least one wavy character image from at least one row arranged characters on a plastic or paper substrate of a security document, in particular a passport, as well as a personalized security document, which is a forgery-proof Production of security documents using interchangeable characters allows.

This object is achieved on the method side by the features of patent claim 1 and on the product side by the features of patent claim 13.

An essential point of the invention is that in a personalization method for generating at least one wavy character image from at least one row arranged characters on a plastic or paper substrate of a security document, in particular a passport, the following steps are applied: Selecting specific personal data from an amount of stored personal data associated with a particular person,

Assigning at least a part of the selected person-specific data to predeterminable positions for generating at least part of a single-row or multi-row and wavy-formed virtual character image with at least a part of character image data,

- Programming a laser device with the character image data, and

Burning the characters based on the character image data by means of a laser beam of the laser device displaceable along a surface of the plastic or paper substrate to produce a part of the real one-or multi-row and wave-shaped character image.

The personalized security document produced by means of such a method, which has at least one plastic or paper substrate, is characterized in that the plastic or paper substrate contains a wavy and one-row or multi-row character image with person-specific data burnt on its surface by means of the laser device.

The use of such a method makes it possible, for the first time, that person-specific data, such as names, birth data, eye color and the like, can be exchanged easily and quickly during the transition from the step of personalizing a first security document to the further step of personalizing a further security document and in the characters, which are predominantly micro-characters, can be included, since such a laser device allows the rapid exchange of data and the rapid programming or branding of new person-specific data. As a result, person-specific data can be incorporated by means of a wavy micro-lettering, which is unreadable to the naked eye, in an already aufzutragendes or einzuarbeitendes image, so that in combination with the image increased security against counterfeiting of the document was created.

In such a production method, the steps of associating at least part of the selected person-specific data with predeterminable positions, programming a laser device and burning in the characters based on the character image data are preferably repeated until all the wel Lenovo real character image is burned. It can therefore be calculated separately before burning or applying or engraving the wave-shaped microtext lettering the respective position of each character or any number or part of characters or numbers and then a burn / Apply / Engrave done before the position another number is calculated. For this purpose, the particular person-specific data, which may include at least one character assigned to a particular position and branded, then assign another character of another position and burn this before a third character is calculated in position, etc .. At the end of such a repetitive process flow is a wavy lettering from the micro-typed, which contains individual personal data that may contain additional or anyway from the rest of the security document resulting information about the person.

The characters, which letters, digits and the like characters, as they are known, for example, from the keyboard of a PC, allow the preparation of a tamper-proof personalization document or personalized security document, since on the one hand, a simple copy process only creates a copied line and on the other hand, the information contained in the microtext is not readable without the aid of aids, such as enlargers.

In addition, if the wave-shaped microtext with the person-specific data is incorporated in the plastic substrate - a greater security against counterfeiting is given insofar as manipulation of the security document requires changing the plastic substrate, which is generally difficult to carry out.

According to a preferred embodiment, the characters are arranged in text lines arranged one below the other. Alternatively, the characters can be arranged in juxtaposed text columns. This results in a readable text of formulated words that may include, for example, the name of the person and other personalization data.

The characters can at least partially contain color gradations, so that color contours and color transitions, even when using black and white Illustrations may be within a character such as a letter.

The character size of the individual characters can be selected depending on the desired persons producing these security documents themselves. Here, the character sizes and possibly also the resolution of each character can be set individually to create, for example, wavy lettering with steadily decreasing letters, so that the individual rows of waves are getting smaller until their complete disappearance. Of course, the size of the characters within a row of waves or a micro-text string can increase and decrease as often as desired.

The amplitude and the frequency of the microtext ripple waves can increase and decrease as often as desired within a series of waves and, if appropriate, be of different sizes, even if the individual wave rows are arranged one below the other.

According to a preferred embodiment, an image, such as the image of a person, is additionally baked in the region of the character image, so that the person image is superimposed by the wave-shaped microtext, which may be formed, for example, in four rows.

Preferably, as the laser device, a CO ₂ laser for burning the characters based on the character image data into the plastic substrate is used. Of course, any other laser that is capable of removing parts on the surface of the plastic substrate can alternatively be used. In this context, for example, an excimer laser, which works in the ultraviolet range and can ablate material parts without heating the material by ablation, to mention.

As an alternative to the use of a laser device, a thermal direct printing method or a retransfer printing method can be used both in monochrome monochrome and in full color for transferring the characters or the character image data onto the plastic film substrate. Such a marking laser can engrave the characters with a font size of 0.4 mm and - if desired - with a font size of 0.2 mm.

The personalized security document according to the invention, such as a passport for a person, thus has the plastic substrate and / or the paper substrate with a character image containing person-specific data, wherein the character image is wave-shaped and is preferably formed in multiple rows by mutually arranged character waves.

The plastic substrate may be formed both single-layered and double-layered for receiving a paper substrate arranged therebetween. In the case of a two-ply embodiment, the arrangement of the character image on the inside of one of the plastic substrates or both plastic substrates, ie on the side facing the paper substrate, lends itself to reducing the risk of tampering with the character image introduced into the plastic substrate ,

The plastic substrate may be colorless, so transparent, or colored with different shades of color or monochrome.

Further advantageous embodiments will become apparent from the dependent claims.

Advantages and expediencies can be found in the following description in conjunction with the drawing. Hereby show:

1 shows a representation of a section of a personalized security document according to the invention with character images according to a first embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 shows an illustration of a section of the personalized security document produced according to the invention with a character image according to a second embodiment of the invention, and FIG 3 shows an illustration of a section of the personalized security document produced according to the invention with a character image according to a third embodiment of the invention.

Shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 are wave-shaped character images which have been produced according to the method according to the invention. FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 differ in that different waveforms for the character images 1 - 9 shown in three rows in this case, which contain characters, namely letters in particular, have.

According to the wavelike three-row character images 1, 2 and 3, microtext characters having waveforms having different amplitudes and frequencies, that is, different wave forms and wavelengths are configurable.

In Fig. 2, a three-row character image 4 is shown in waveform, in which the font sizes of the characters used therein are steadily reduced with continuous wave until they are invisible or leaked in the background.

FIG. 3 once again shows three-row character images 5 - 9, which likewise have different amplitudes and frequencies, whereby such differently equipped character images 5 - 9 can also be arranged together within a security document in order to increase the security against counterfeiting.

All features disclosed in the application documents are claimed as essential to the invention insofar as they are novel individually or in combination with respect to the prior art.

LIST OF REFERENCE NUMBERS

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 wavy character images with different

Amplitudes and waveforms and character sizes.

Claims

Personalization method for generating a wavy character image and personalized security document claims

1. A personalization method for generating at least one wave-shaped character image (1-9) from at least one row arranged characters on a plastic or paper substrate of a security document, in particular a passport, characterized by the following steps:

Selecting specific personal data from a set of stored personal data associated with a particular person,

Assigning at least part of the selected person-specific data to predeterminable positions for generating at least a part of a single-row or multi-row and wavy-formed virtual character image with at least a part of character image data, programming a laser device with the character image data,

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the steps of allocating at least part of the selected person-specific data, programming a laser device and burning the characters based on the character image data are repeated until the entire wavy real character image is burned is.

3. The method according to claim 2, characterized in that after production of the entire character image, the person-specific data are selected from a set of another specific person.

4. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the characters are formed as without the aid of magnifying unreadable microtexts.

5. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the characters are arranged in mutually arranged text lines.

6. The method according to any one of claims 1 -4, characterized in that the characters are arranged in juxtaposed text columns.

7. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the character size of the characters is changed.

8. The method according to claim 7, characterized in that the character size of the characters within a line of text decreases and / or increases.

9. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that at least a proportion of the characters contains color gradations.

10. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that letters and / or numbers are used as characters.

11. The method according to claim 10, characterized in that are used as characters texts with names, birth data, biometric data and the like person-specific data.

12. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that an image, such as the image of a person, is additionally baked in the region of the character image.

13. A personalized security document, in particular a passport, comprising at least one plastic or paper substrate, characterized in that the plastic or paper substrate contains a wave-shaped and one-row or multi-row formed character image with person-specific data burnt on its surface by means of a laser device.