MX2013005962A - Method and system for detecting fake consumables. - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention comprises a method for identifying an original/fake canned product, wherein, per N fake copies of an original product, one of them will be determined as original, while the rest N-1 copies will be identified by the consumer as fakes, by means of the reading obtained from an identifier located at the external portion of the product, and a system based on two IDs, one external and the other internal. From these IDs, the external ID is in an ACTIVE state in a database. The reading of the internal ID may automatically change the status of the external ID from ACTIVE TO INACTIVE, in such a manner that other fake products with copies of IDs of original products will be detected as fakes when the external ID is read, without opening the product. For increasing the efficiency of the system, the IDs have a very low possibility to be randomly generated. The reading of the IDs and the consultation thereof in the database will be preferably performed by a mobile phone or the like. An additional application of the invention is the possibility of using this method for identifying a product authorized for sale, by a certification body.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DETECTING CONSUMABLE PRODUCTS COUNTERFEIT DESCRIPTION FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention consists of a method and system that allows to detect if a canned or packaged product is original or a forgery. This method can be applied in general for the identification of all those products that are consumable, that is, used only once, although it is also likely to be applied to products whose use is imperishable, such as clothing, clothing accessories, software or articles. among others, as long as these products are placed in a container or packaging. Most systems based on the reading of codes associated with the product and its comparison in a database, consist of a parallel reading, that is, the conclusion about the condition of the product is obtained until two identifiers are read. In the method proposed in this application, an identification based on a serial system is proposed, that is, if the product is apocryphal it could be concluded that it is with the reading of a single identifier, in the external part of the product, that not only would detect a fake immediately, but avoid problems caused by the return of the product.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The industry in general, and especially the production of packaged beverages and perfumes suffers annually millionaire losses by the falsification of their products. In theory, given that it is difficult to know if a product is original or not, it is provided with a label that is easy to identify and that guarantees that the product is genuine. This approach assumes three things: that the label can not be removed from the product, that the label can not be falsified and that the label can be differentiated from an original one by a consumer. These three requirements are difficult to meet today. More sophisticated technology to produce labels Difficult to reproduce or detach generally entails an impossibility for the common consumer to differentiate a true label from a false label, so that the verification of the product is limited to specialized personnel. An alternative is to provide the product with a label or code that can be read by a specialized reader or a cell phone, which in turn transmits that code to a database that determines whether or not the code exists in the database , allowing to know if the product is original or not. This method has the main drawback that the database can not identify whether the code transferred belongs to an original label or a copy, so it is enough to obtain a reliable copy of a label to violate the system. A modification of this method consists of nullifying the validity of the code once it has been transferred to the database for consultation and verification, that is, once the code of a label is read and this is for example 123456, said code is removed from the database and so any other query on the same code will result in. identify the product as apocryphal. The main problem with this method is that if the code is displayed outside the product, the simple reading of a code will affect the status of the product, since despite being original, subsequent code readings will identify it as false. To avoid this, the code can be placed inside the product, for example, on the inside of the lid, in the case of bottled drinks. However, this last approach presents the problem that it is impossible to determine the status of the product without opening it, which makes it impossible for a user who buys a product for resale or simply as a gift, to verify its authenticity, since if it were to do so, altered the presentation of the product.

To facilitate the best description of the present invention, a series of specific definitions will be used, which are mentioned below: ID: Identification acronym, which is the physical medium that contains information, usually numeric or alphanumeric. A typical example of ID is a bar code.

Code: information contained in an ID.

ID reading: process to acquire the code of an ID.

Reader System: It is a system that includes hardware and software that allows the code to read an ID. This reader can transmit or not the information to third parties automatically. Database: it is a system that stores information regarding the codes.

Validation: Act of analyzing the information of the code with respect to the database. The resulting information can be a variety of responses, for example: if the code is present or not in the database, how many times it has been read or in general, any other information associated with the code.

QR: acronym for "Quick Response" or quick response. This is a two-dimensional bar code.

Consumer: any individual who acquires ownership of the product.

Intermediate consumer: any individual who acquires ownership of the product, but does not consume it.

Final consumer: any individual who acquires ownership of the product to consume it.

We can classify the ID's in three types: 1) Due to its location in the product, ID's can be internal or external. 2) By its way of reading it, the ID may or may not require equipment to read the code they contain. 3) Due to the way it is accessed, the ID can show the code at a glance or it can be covered with some layer of material that requires removal.

As mentioned above, although the validation of the authenticity of a product can be carried out with the help of sophisticated equipment, this limits the possibility that such validations can be made by the common consumer, lacking the required experience or technology. The number of specialized teams and personnel prepared for their use is, in practice, insufficient in the face of the massive distribution of counterfeit products, making it impossible for this technology to have an impact significant. Such sophisticated validations may include chemical or light reactions applied to the product (US7687271, US8268623 B2, US7874489).

On the other hand, a quite effective alternative to reduce the counterfeiting of these products is to provide them with sophisticated IDs that are very difficult to reproduce or read, as are some inventions that are part of the state of the art. (US6354501, US6612494, US5974150, EP1889231 Al, EP1922674 A2, US20050049979 Al, US20040015700, EP1217356 B1, US7577844).

These measures, however, face two drawbacks: first, the greater the degree of sophistication in the preparation of such IDs, the less the possibility that a final consumer can verify their authenticity; second, such IDs, although difficult to duplicate, can not be ruled out as duplicates, and therefore, the security conferred by the difficulty in duplicating it causes a counterproductive effect due to the greater confidence that the product is genuine when it is not is.

A variant of the verification system that is a bit more complicated to circumvent is to use a pair of ID's. One of them, usually discovered and easily readable, and the other, hidden in several possible ways. The code of the discovered ID is transmitted by some generally electronic means to a database, which returns a code corresponding to that ID. The user discovers the hidden ID to verify if the code it contains matches or is related to the received code, which allows to verify if the product is genuine or not. Said characteristics are incorporated in the inventions that are part of the state of the art. (US6788800, US7757948 B2, US20070056041 Al, US250483, EP 2350912 Al, US20110049862, US20070055883 Al, EP2428925 Al, US7686231 B2, US20090219132 Al, US20090106042 Al, US20090138275 Al, US20090204417 Al, US 2012/0179614 Al).

Generally, the first ID is visible to the naked eye, but the second ID, which may be inscribed in some hidden or exposed material, is generally invisible to the naked eye and You may need physical work to be discovered. In addition to the aforementioned problem related to the possibility of falsifying labels, these systems have a main problem: the reading of the second label can only be done once to verify the authenticity of the product, since it involves the breaking of a package. This problem especially affects those products that go through several stages of sale from the manufacturer, distributors, exporters / importers, resellers until reaching the final consumer, where it is understandable that each of the buyers in the supply chain wants to verify if the product It is authentic. Thus, any of the instances involved in this supply chain that want to verify the authenticity of the product before paying for it, would annul the verification system to future consumers. To avoid this, systems with several covered external keys have been suggested, which are unveiled one by one, in successive stages as necessary, as indicated in patent US250483.

The problem with the method that consists of several covered foreign keys is its low versatility, since it is not known how many consumers there will be in a supply chain, and it is generally impractical to ensure a label with those multiple use characteristics to a packaged product. To this must be added that the labels exposed to the users, with visible ID or not, can be falsifiable eventually.

In summary, the methods that use two or more IDs determine that a product is original if the codes of both IDs correspond, for which a confidential database is consulted with the help of a device. In this way, although the falsification of both ID's is feasible, it is practically impossible to generate codes that correspond to each other without having access to the database that contains the correspondence between the codes of all the manufactured products. However, the common denominator with this method is that it is required to read the codes of both ID's, if it is desired to conclude whether the product is genuine or not, limiting the number of times that the authenticity of the product can be verified on a single occasion, if you do not want to affect the presentation of the product. To this method that requires the reading of two ID's to conclude if the product is original or not, it will be called as parallel reading.

An example of a method for determining the authenticity of a product based on parallel reading is the patent application EP 2350912 Al granted to Dangmann and Desheraud, to detect counterfeit products, mainly alcoholic beverages, which works in the following way: an ID which is difficult to falsify is placed on the outside of the container, preferably laser engraved, while the other ID is placed at the time of packaging the product, so that the second ID is part of the seal of the container. Assuming that both ID's are difficult to counterfeit, then when reading both ID's it can be verified with the help of a database, that both IDs belong to an authorized pair and therefore the product is genuine. One or the problems presented by this method is, as already mentioned, the one that is required to open the product to verify if it is original. Another problem is that such techniques are generally costly, preventing their use in low-cost products, such as individual-use water bottles.

Another example of a method based on parallel reading is the patent application US2008250483 of Hang Kyung Lee, which is similar in principle to the previous patent EP 2350912, since two ID's are also required, however, in the patent application US2008250483 both ID's are available for reading only until the container is opened, that is, you do not have access to the ID's without having violated the traditional guarantee seals to guarantee that the container has not been opened. This causes a serious problem, mainly if the final consumer of the product is not in fact the buyer, but will be transferred to another person for sale or simply as a gift, since then it is not possible to verify if the product is genuine or not without altering significantly its packaging and without altering its integrity. A solution proposed in the same patent application US2008250483, is to provide the system with several pairs of IDs, in such a way that the authenticity of the product can be corroborated by several buyers in succession. He Obvious problem with this method is that it is impractical to provide a label with a series of ID's to inexpensive packaged or canned products.

The patent US7757948 B2 to Whewell, Cox and Gill, describes a system for verifying the authenticity of a product based on the reading of one or several ID's in the product, mainly pharmaceutical products. However, as mentioned by the authors of such patent, the method can only be applied at the final point of sale or distribution, that is, by an authorized distributor, so that consumers can not verify the authenticity of the product.

The patent application US20070056041 Al by Goodman presents a system for identification of genuine products based on codes or IDs that are distributed to users. The system is designed so that the product can be transferred from consumer to consumer allowing each one to verify the authenticity of the product. In a succinct way, the method works in the following way: each product has a unique ID and its owner has a code corresponding to that ID. Each time the owner of a product wishes to transfer the product to another user, it generates a new code associated with the product and thus, the new owner of the product can verify that the product ID matches the code that was transferred to it. There are several disadvantages of this method, however, the most important is that it is very impractical, since the transfer of the code from one user to the next can be laborious, in addition to requiring a complicated control to use, especially when a buyer acquires several dozens of containers such as water bottles or alcoholic beverages for resale elsewhere, being necessary to transfer the associated code to each of the bottles to the next consumer. Another important problem without a doubt, is that it is possible to acquire a bottle and receive the code associated with the ID of that product, and reproduce the ID associated with the bottle several times. Thus, it is possible to sell several counterfeit bottles with the same ID and distribute the same code associated with each ID. Different users will thus have bottles with the same ID and the same code, and all will conclude that the product is genuine. On the other hand, it is a very impractical system when one wishes, for example, to sell or buy dozens of bottled bottles, since the transfer of the codes to the new owner must be done individually, for each bottle of the product.

The patent application US201 10049862 claims a parallel use of two ID's for the identification of an article, but proposes that one of the two ID's is based on OVD (Optically Variable Device) technology that is an ID that changes its appearance according to the angle in let's see Thus, this method also reads two ID's but assumes that at least one of them is very difficult to counterfeit.

Patent US8108309 is a very effective system to identify a product as genuine or not. However, it requires that each product be sold together with a device that is generally known as a "token", similar to the one used to perform online banking transactions, which is inexpensive and serves to generate codes. The product also has an ID and an associated code and the "token" is used to enter the ID and thus the "token" must throw the associated code. If not, the product is false. As can be seen, the method is effective because "tokens" are practically impossible to counterfeit, but each manufactured product is required to carry one of these "tokens". The patent US8108309 also claims that, alternatively to the use of the "token", the product can be associated with software that acts as the same. This method in practice can not be applied to bottled products of mass distribution, although as the authors of the patent US8108309 mention it, it can serve to verify the authenticity of high cost products.

Similarly, the patent application US 20120179614 Al of Tang and Young, requires an electronic device that is attached to the newly manufactured product, in such a way that it is this device that generates a code which can be verified on a basis of data. Similar to the patent US8108309 above, the authenticity of the product depends on the impossibility of reproducing the electronic device that is attached to the product. Likewise, such a device undoubtedly increases the cost of the product and it is difficult for It suits mass-produced bottled products, especially if they are inexpensive.

The patent application US20070055883 Al de Kruse consists of providing the product with two covered IDs, which require physical work to reveal its contents. A database records the IDs that have been consulted. The first buyer of the product can verify the authenticity of the product by revealing the first ID and consulting a database if no request for information about that ID has been made, in case it has not been done, the product is original. The second buyer of the product can verify the authenticity of the product by discovering the second ID and consulting the database. The system is undoubtedly effective, but it has a main problem: only the authenticity of the product can be verified in two successive instances, and therefore it is difficult to apply in those products that have more than two successive distribution stages (regional, state, municipal, etc.) and need more than two verifications.

Patent EP2428925 Al a Schmitz also consists of placing one or two ID's in the product in such a way that a database can identify the ID, when it is unique, as valid or that the pair of ID's correspond to each other. Like the previous methods, this has the disadvantage that both ID's can be duplicated.

The patent applications US20090106042 Al to Maytal and Tsuria, US20090138275 Al to Maytal, US20090204417 Al to Tsuria and US20090219132 Al to Maytal and Tsuria correspond to methods of the reading type in parallel, that is, it is required to read two ID's to determine if the product is false or not. The main problem is that the authenticity of the product can only be reviewed once, and can not be applied successively unless several pairs of IDs are supplied for each of the stages of sale. The same problem presents the patent US7686231 B2 to Hamilton, since the verification on the originality of the product can only be done once, not allowing the product to be verified by subsequent purchasers of the product.

As can be seen from the reading of the aforementioned patents, the methods suggested to verify the authenticity of a product affect the product to be verified, that is, the sole verification of the authenticity changes the status of the original or new product to a false or used product, limiting the number of times that the originality of the product can be witnessed.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION The present application comprises a method, by means of which the identification based on a series system is possible, that is, if the product is apocryphal it could be concluded that it is with the reading of a single identifier, in the external part of the product, what that not only would detect a fake immediately, but avoid problems caused by the return of the product. This system is very low cost, so its use could be generalized for the protection of packaged, canned or packaged products, low cost.

It is necessary to develop a system that can be applied by a common user, with the help of a cell phone or similarly accessible technology, that can determine with a very high probability when the product is original or false, without needing to open the product, and that at the same time can be used an unlimited number of times without altering the initial condition of "original product not used" as such, that is, without altering it at all. A feature of the present invention is that, in addition to being effective, its implementation is very low cost, but it is also highly effective in detecting apocryphal products even if their ID's have been duplicated perfectly.

A further use of the invention is the possibility of using this method to identify a product that is authorized for sale. For example, many products claim to have medicinal properties, and providing these products with an external and internal ID as proposed in this document, authorized and provided by the appropriate certification body, would be a way of guaranteeing that the product actually possesses the properties that claim The proposed system and method has the following advantages: a) It can be used by any user with a cell phone, or other similar device. b) The vast majority of the time, the authenticity of the product can be verified as many times as necessary, by reading an external ID, without affecting the appearance of the product and without altering its packaging. c) It allows practically any individual to be part of the verification system, thus increasing surveillance. d) It is very low cost.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The proposed system and method has the following characteristics: each product has two ID's, one external and one internal. The reading of the first ID does not require the removal of a protective layer, but it can be read directly as many times as desired. The internal ID can only be read when the product is considered to have been opened. The status of the external ID can be ACTIVE or INACTIVE. The product is considered genuine if the external ID is in the ACTIVE state. The status of the external ID is kept in a database, this database being the one that notifies the state in which each ID that is read is found. Initially each original product has its external ID in the ACTIVE state. Each ID, external or internal, consists of a random number of a large order, so that generating this number by chance has a very low probability of occurring. Additionally, the database registers each pair of ID's assigned to the products, in such a way that there is a unique correspondence between each pair of ID's assigned to each product: When the external ID is read, the information is sent to the database that checks if the status is ACTIVE or INACTIVE, but this act does not change the status of the ID. However, when the internal ID is read, the status of the first ID automatically changes to INACTIVE. In this way, all those counterfeit products that have the same external ID of an original product, changed their status to INACTIVE and thus will be detected as false before opening. As will be detailed later, this scheme allows, if they occur No counterfeits, with both internal and external ID's identical to the original, then only one of them will be qualified as authentic, while the remaining N-l will be detected as counterfeits only with the reading of the external ID, without the need to open the product. It will also be detailed later how this scheme is unaffordable for the counterfeiter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 shows an example of the use of the method and system presented here in which the consumable product is a liquid contained in a bottle. In this particular case the external ID (1) is a QR on a label attached to the bottle and the internal ID (2) is a QR adhered to the inside of the bottle cap. There are several ways to place the external and internal IDs and Figure 1 is illustrative only.

Figure 2 shows a scheme of system operation, where, for purposes of explanation, the Reader System (3) is a cell phone: the Reader System (3) reads the external ID (1) and transmits the code to the Base of Data (4) for your query. Figure 2 shows with a dotted arrow (5) the query made by the Reader System to the Database (4), and with another arrow equally dotted (6) the response of the database to the Reader System (3) on the status of the ID that was read.

Figure 3 shows an example of the organization of the information in the Database (4). This figure shows column 1 that contains the codes of the external IDs (7) and column 2, which contains the codes of the internal IDs (8). The third column (9) contains the status of the external ID (1). In this figure it can be seen that the products whose codes are in rows 3 and 5 have already been used (10), so the status of the external ID changed from ACTIVE to INACTIVE.

Figure 4 shows a table with the different combinations of external and internal IDs that can be made. The purpose of this figure is to detail what is the effect of the different schemes that can be used to make pass a counterfeit product as genuine, and how the system proposed in this patent application responds to each of these attempts, as will be explained later.

The system and method consists of four components: i) An external ID (1) that is placed on the outside of the container, so that it can be easily read without the need to remove any layer or cover.

II) An internal ID (2) that is placed in such a way that it can only be read when the product is opened, for example, inside the lid of the product.

III) A Database (4) that houses the correspondence between external and internal IDs. The Database (4) contains at least three columns: The first column (7) contains the codes of the external IDs (1).

The second column (8) contains the codes of the internal IDs (2), which correspond to each of the internal IDs (1).

The third column (9) contains the status of each of the external codes (1).

For each external ID, an internal ID must correspond to the database. A Each pair of internal and external IDs that correspond to each other in the Database (4) will be called in this document.

The number of rows in the Database is at least equal to the number of packaged units that you wish to protect. None of the codes contained in the IDs, whether external or internal, are repeated and preferably the codes are very unlikely to be generated at random, which can be achieved with numbers of a large order of magnitude.

IV) An application that can be used on several fixed or portable platforms, which will be referred to as "Reader System" (3). This application can read the code of an ID and transmit it to the Database (4) automatically. This "Reader System" (3) can also receive information from the "Database" (4).

EXAMPLES Example number 1.- The system works in the following way: in the example case that the platform is a cell phone: a) The cell phone is loaded with some software capable of reading the codes of the ID's while also being able to consult these codes in a database, and thus the mobile telephone is converted into a "Reader System" (3). b) The "Reader System" (3) reads the external ID (1) and automatically sends it to the "Database" (4). The Database (4) verifies that this number is in the first column (7) of the Database. If you find it, check the corresponding column "Status" (9). If the status is ACTIVE, the product is genuine, if it is INACTIVE, the product is a forgery. This process can be done as many times as desired by the same user or by several users in the supply chain. c) When a consumer or end user wants to consume the product, ideally re-read the external ID (1) before consuming it. If the verification in its corresponding column "Status" (9) concludes that its status is INACTIVE, it should not acquire the product, since it has in its hands a product that has not been opened and however the status of the external ID is INACTIVE, that is, a counterfeit product. The reason why the first time the consumer read the external ID and its status was ACTIVE and the second time its status is INACTIVE is because in the time between readings, another consumer read the internal ID of a product original or falsified with the same ID and therefore all copies of the product with the same external ID changed its status to INACTIVE, as will be detailed later. d) On the contrary, if as a result of reading the external ID (1) it is concluded that the external ID is ACTIVE, the product may be original. Then the final consumer opens the product, which gives access to the internal ID (2). He reads it with the "System Reader "(3) which automatically sends it to the" Database "(4) and verifies that this number is contained in the corresponding column (8) If the internal ID is effectively the one corresponding to the external ID, the product is original, and if it does not correspond, it is false At this moment, the external ID corresponding to the internal ID, changes its status to INACTIVE.

Example number 2.- Using Figure 3, if a product has an external code equal to 971317812358475415552, then its internal code must be the number 7655167881490023317504, which is the contiguous code. Otherwise, the product is a fake.

Example number 3.- To reinforce the detection capacity of apocryphal products, the reader system could have two options: one to read the external ID and the other to read the internal ID. This means that when reading any ID, the system would ask if the internal or external ID is being read, which would allow detecting the correspondence between both ID's. Notify the system if the ID that is read is external or internal is useful because a skilful counterfeiter could produce fake products in which, for example, the external ID and the internal ID are identical, and the system could not differentiate when reading an internal or external ID and could not detect the counterfeit. In this case, the user could read an external ID and then an internal ID that does not correspond, and yet the system would believe that external IDs of two different products are being read without detecting the counterfeit.

DESCRIPTION OF THE BEST IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INVENTION The following describes the different scenarios under which you can try to distribute counterfeit or altered products, and how the system proposed in this document will counteract the effects, starting with simple attempts to the most sophisticated. In each situation, it is assumed that users read the external ID at the time of purchasing the product and subsequently must read both the external and internal ID immediately before using it, at the time of uncovering it. The table contained in the Figüra 4 will serve to show how the system proposed in this patent application reacts to each possible situation.

In the table of Figure 4, keys A, B, X, A 'and B' appear in both entries of the table. The description of each one of these keys is as follows: A and B are two valid external ID's, that is, these ID's are contained somewhere in the first column (7) of the Database (4).

A 'and B' are two valid internal ID's, that is, these ID's are contained in some of the second column (8) of the Database (4). In this case we assume that the external ID A corresponds to the internal ID A 'and the external ID B corresponds to the internal ID B', that is, A and A 'are double, as are B and B'.

X = is an invalid ID, that is, it is an ID that is not contained in the Database (4). It can also indicate the absence of an ID.

The table in Figure 4 shows the 25 possible combinations that can be made with the ID's?,?,? ',?' and X. The effect of each of these combinations is discussed below.

The white squares (11), at the intersection of A with A 'as well as B with B', correspond to original products. In these two cases, when a user reads the external ID, it is notified that the ID is ACTIVE and upon opening the product and reading the internal ID, the system will report that the internal ID corresponds to the external ID, therefore the user will conclude that the product is original.

The third column (12) of the table corresponds to products whose external ID is invalid or does not exist in the product, therefore the product is not original. This will be possible to conclude only with the reading of the external ID, without the need to open the container.

The fourth and fifth columns (13) correspond to internal ID's that were placed on the outside, so the product will be detected as false. This will be possible to conclude only with the reading of the external ID, without the need to open the container.

The first and second columns (14), except for the white boxes (11), correspond to situations in which the external ID is valid and ACTIVE, but when opening the product and reading the internal ID, the product will be diagnosed as non-original, given that the internal ID does not correspond to the external ID.

Below are some specific cases of counterfeit products and how the system proposed in this document counteracts these attempts: Situation A: a counterfeiter produces a number N copies of a fake product and provides them with an external and internal ID that does not exist in the database.

Effect A: users will detect that each of the products is false when they do not find the external ID in the "Database" (4). This without the need to open the product packaging.

Situation B: a counterfeiter obtains the internal and external ID of an original container that has already been used and distributes N copies of this product on the market. Each of these N products has the same internal and external ID pair as the original product that served as the model.

Effect B: the system will detect that the product is false when it reads the external ID and detects that it corresponds to a product that has already been reported as used, since a previous user already read the internal ID and the status of the external ID changed to INACTIVE .

Situation C: a counterfeiter buys an original product and obtains the internal and external ID and distributes N copies of this product in the market. Each of these N products has the same internal and external ID pair as the original product that served as the model.

Effect C: the first user of an apocryphal product will detect that the external ID is active and the internal ID corresponds to the external ID therefore the product will be qualified as original. However, this action deactivates the external ID so that the other N-l users will detect the external ID in status INACTIVE, so they will qualify the product as false without having to open the product.

As can be seen, for every N counterfeit products that each has the correct pair of external and internal ID, only one can be sold, and since the external-internal ID pair must be a pair with the active external ID, it is necessary that the counterfeiter acquires a new product, in order to distribute on the market only one of its counterfeit products, so, assuming that the counterfeit product will be sold at a cost equal to or less than the original, it will not recover the investment in the original product that it used to get the valid ID's.

Under this scheme, a forger that copies the external and internal IDs of an original product and produces a counterfeit, can only pass a single product for authentic, either the copy or the original, so the scheme is unaffordable.

As can be seen, for the system to be more efficient, it is advisable to convince users to read the external code when buying the product, and read the external and internal ID immediately before consuming the product, thus returning the original seller showing the product unopened It is important that users read the internal ID to change the status of the external ID from ACTIVE to INACTIVE, thus collaborating so that copies of the product are detected by other users. Finally, it is important that the Reader System software is downloaded from an authorized server, to ensure that the code query is done with the authorized server.

To build an efficient and low cost system that allows to detect a counterfeit product, ideally all manufactured products must have two ID's, one external to the user accessible to the naked eye, and one internal, available only when the product has been opened to access its content, which necessarily requires having purchased the product. The consumer uses a means of reading the code, preferably a cell phone, which automatically reads the code and queries it on a server which contains a database which in turn reports the status of the ID as ACTIVE or INACTIVE, corresponding the first to an original product and the second to a false one. Once the consumer corroborates that it is original, he buys the product and can consume it at that moment or reserve it for later or simply transfer it to another consumer. Each of the consumers can review the status of the product using the same procedure. The final consumer re-reads the external ID using for example a cell phone, just to make sure that no product has been reported in the market with the same ID. If so, return the product to the seller without having opened it, for your claim, being able to show that the product has been previously reported by another consumer and verifying that the product has not been opened. In case the external ID has the status of ACTIVE still, as it corresponds to an original product, then open the product and thus gain access to the internal ID. Then read the internal ID act with which the external product ID changes from ACTIVE to INACTIVE.

In the case of bottled drinks, it is recommended that the external ID be printed or attached to the outside of the lid, while the internal ID may be attached or printed on the inside of the lid itself. This to prevent a user exchanging jars and caps of different products to claim the return of the value of the purchase to have supposedly detected a product as false.

Products such as clothing, software, footwear, etc. They can be protected with this methodology as long as they are provided with an appropriate package or packing, to which an external ID and an internal ID can be added.

A further use of the invention is the possibility of using this method to identify a product that is authorized for sale by a certifying body.

It is implicit that the present invention is not limited by what has been described above, but rather the object of the present invention includes combinations of several of the aspects described above that could occur to a person skilled in the art afterwards. of having read the description made above. It should also be understood that the phrases and terms used herein are for descriptive and illustrative use only and should not be considered as limiting the invention presented herein.

Claims (21)

CLAIMS Having sufficiently described the invention we consider as a novelty, with inventive activity and industrial application, and therefore claim as my exclusive property, what is contained in the following clauses:

1. A method of product identification, characterized by being based on two ID's, one on the outside of the product, available to the eye and capable of being read directly or with any electronic means whose individual status can be ACTIVE or INACTIVE.

2. A method as claimed in 1, in which the record of the state in which the external ID is located is kept in a database, which has the possibility of changing the status of each ID as necessary.

3. A method according to the preceding claims, in which at the time of manufacture of the authentic product the external ID is printed in the ACTIVE state.

4. A method according to claim 3, in which at the time of manufacture of the authentic product the external ID is adhered in the ACTIVE state.

5. A method according to claim 3, in which at the time of manufacture of the authentic product the external ID is recorded in the ACTIVE state.

6. A method according to claim 3, which allows to verify the status of the external ID of a particular product, when changing from ACTIVE to INACTIVE with the single reading of the internal ID.

7. A method according to claim 6, in which the product is qualified as authentic if the external ID is in the ACTIVE state and the internal ID corresponds to the external ID in a database.

8. A method according to claim 7, which identifies a product based on two ID's, an external one, which can be read without opening the product, and another internal one, which requires opening the product package to access its contents.

9. A system that uses the preceding claims to qualify a product in which the reading of the external ID does not change its status from ACTIVE to INACTIVE.

10. A system according to claim 9, by which the reading of the ID's and their consultation with the database is done through a mobile device with camera and access to the database that contains information about the ID's.

1 1. A system according to claim 9, by which the reading of the ID's is done with the help of a device and the query of the database is done with another device capable of transmitting the information read to the database for your inquiry.

12. A system according to claim 9, by which the reading of the ID's is done visually and the query of the database is done with a device capable of transmitting the information read to the database for consultation.

13. A system according to claim 9, in which the query of the database is performed with the instrumentation of the method described above in a computer program that allows its automation and remote transmission with the database, in such a way that it is guaranteed that the query of the database is the authorized database to provide the information on the status of the IDs.

14. A system according to claim 10, in which the query of the database requires the user to detail whether the ID that is read is external or internal, in such a way that the system determines whether the product is a counterfeit or not.

15. A system according to claim 10, in which when consulting the database the system automatically details whether the read ID is external or internal, in such a way that the user determines if the product is a forgery or not.

16. A system according to claim 14, wherein the external ID is on the outside of the lid of a product and the internal ID on the inside of the lid itself.

17. A system according to claim 14, in which the external ID is located somewhere on the outside of the product and another somewhere in the internal part.

18. A system according to claim 14, in which the external ID may require the removal of some layer for reading.

19. A system according to claim 14, in which the status of the external IDs is deactivated depending on the internal ID that was read.

20. A system according to claim 14, in which the status of the external IDs is deactivated depending on the external ID that was read.

21. A system according to claim 14, in which the status of the external IDs is deactivated depending on the internal and external ID that were read.