RU2776150C2 - Method for manufacture and protection from illegal copying of decorative paper or decorative film - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: paper industry.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to a method for the manufacture of decorative paper or decorative film. The method contains: creation of digital visual information data that defines desired décor; introduction of a sign to visual information data of desired décor to create changed visual information data, while changes are invisible to the human eye, when printing changed visual information data, and thereby the introduced sign is invisible to the human eye; application of printing to decorative paper or decorative film by means of changed visual information data to form desired décor with the introduced sign; provision of a program application that is stored on a computer connected to a camera; provision of a screen that is connected to the computer. The program application is made in such a way that it filters the introduced sign from a camera-taken image and displays it on the screen. The sign is a picture consisting of pixels exceeding the standard size, with a size of at least 2×2 mm.

EFFECT: creation of a method for the manufacture of decorative paper or decorative film protected from illegal copying.

12 cl, 4 dwg

Description

The invention relates to a method for making decorative paper or a decorative film that forms the surface of a decorative part and for protection against illegal copying.

For surfaces of furniture, walls, floors and ceilings in rooms, increasingly high-quality decors are printed on a decorative base paper or a decorative base film to create a decorative paper or a decorative film and are applied over the entire surface on a carrier material, for example by laminating. Such decors are, for example, wood imitations, stone replicas, photorealistic images, as well as graphic elements, textile textures and fantasy patterns. It is extremely costly to create high quality direct imitations of natural materials, such as wood or stone, such that it is difficult or impossible for an observer to distinguish between a genuine natural surface and a printed decorative surface. Accordingly, it is popular with counterfeiters to scan commercially successful original decors with a conventional scanner and thereby obtain digital image files which are necessary for quality counterfeits of high quality.

Decorative papers are high-tech specialty papers that are printed with water-based or solvent-based ink systems or further processed without printing in a single color. The further processing is subdivided essentially into impregnating, varnishing processes for furniture and pre-impregnated decorative papers, pressing onto wood-based materials or gluing onto wood-based materials or other plate materials.

The wood materials are particle board, fibreboard, medium density fibreboard (MDF) and high density fibreboard. However, boards can also be coated or laminated, which can be made from a variety of materials, such as primarily mineral materials, synthetic materials or metals.

Another further processing of these papers is the production of decorative laminates, which are pressed into a uniform board from impregnated, printed and/or dyed liner base papers, or produced in a continuous process (see CPL - Continuously Pressed Laminate).

Other possibilities are taken into account or used to detect the falsification of decorative parts or decorative papers, or at least the difficulty of their manufacture.

One of these possibilities is, as in the case of banknotes, to introduce patterns invisible to the human eye, so-called moiré patterns, which then cannot be detected by the scanner, but lead to distortion of areas, so that these areas are displayed in black. Accordingly, a way to prevent falsification in the past has been to embed designs in the decor, which then appear as black spots in the image file and appear as black spots when printed accordingly. However, it is quite possible for an experienced copyist to cover up these black spots again with other copied areas of the general decor, under certain conditions with matching transitional edges. Consequently, this method is not only very expensive, but also does not provide optimal protection. In addition, such protective measures with increasing fidelity in the transmission of details by scanners become increasingly ineffective.

Another possibility that has been used in the past is to digitally embed hidden characters in the décor that should be printed with it but cannot be recognized by the human eye. If the decor is then scanned, the software interprets the hidden image elements and compares them with the image elements stored in memory. If there is a match, then the decor is designated as the original.

This method exists in the expectation that when scanning and printing, hidden information cannot be reproduced on a copy. Unlike the black spots mentioned earlier, the illegally copied decoration remains unchanged and similar to the original or almost identical to the original for the observer. However, this method also exists in the expectation that this copy protection will not be bypassed in the future by more powerful scanners and printers. So, there is a continuous development of new copy protection measures, which are based primarily on the fact that the number of pixels per square inch is increasing, and ever smaller pixels can be used for encryption.

The object of the invention is to develop a method by which a decorative paper or a decorative film is produced, which forms the surface of a decorative piece, and by which the decorative paper or decorative film is protected against illegal copying.

The method according to the invention is characterized by the following steps:

A) creation of digital visual information data that defines the desired decor,

B) embedding the sign in the visual information data of the desired decor of the sign with the creation of changed visual information data, moreover, when the changed visual information data is printed, the changes are imperceptible to the human eye and thus the embedded sign is imperceptible to the human eye,

C) printing on a decorative paper or a decorative film by means of modified visual information data to form the desired decor with an embedded mark,

D) providing a software application that is stored on a computer associated with the camera,

E) providing a monitor that is connected to a computer,

E) moreover, the software application is designed so that it filters the embedded sign from the image photographed by the camera and displays it on the monitor.

The method according to the invention is fundamentally different from the above known methods. Embedded in the original visual information for the desired decor, the data that changes the visual information is not visible to the human eye, but is recognized by the software application. But unlike the state of the art, embedded visual information can be copied, namely using scanners and printers available on the market, primarily with scanners that have a resolution of 300, 600 or 1200 dpi, and printers with a print resolution of only 600 dpi, preferably 1200 dpi, or gravure print cylinders engraved with bitmap data. Therefore, printing the décor by means of altered visual information results in a décor that is very close to the original décor. However, due to the fact that the sign is printed by the counterfeiter of goods without him knowing it, the original manufacturer can quickly and unambiguously establish that his decor was copied, and not a similar decor.

First of all, the mark may be a registered, protected trademark and/or a registered, protected industrial design, whereby the unauthorized counterfeiter of goods, without noticing it, prints the protected trademark and/or protected industrial design, which will then immediately be made visible through widespread software applications. Another feature follows from the fact that the application does not recognize the decor based on some embedded marks and then displays the stored trademark/industrial design or, according to the prior art, the indication "original", but that the mark (in the preferred embodiment, a trademark or registered industrial design) is itself contained in the decor and is displayed only by means of an auxiliary tool of the software application.

There are various possibilities, however well known in the art, for embedding an indicium in the visual information of a desired decor, and which can be used in the present invention. Firstly, it is possible to overlay the mark on the original decor in a manner similar to the so-called gray image, also called noise image, which is described in connection with FIG. 13 DE 696 20 751 T2. The related technique described in this document is included in the present application solely as a possibility of embedding the mark and filtering the mark after printing as an option to the step of the method according to the invention.

Other similar methods for the same purpose, which can also be used in the method according to the invention, are described in EP 1 019 868 B1 and EP 1 923 830 A2.

A simplified way of embedding and filtering out a sign can be roughly explained as follows. The visual information data for the desired original decor is divided into pixels, which form a signal, which is then recorded by the scanner. For example, in the first surface areas in this area, minimal shifts in the color tone of the décor can occur with the help of a few pixels, by which the signal is also shifted. Hue offsets are organized so that they cannot be perceived by the human eye, but only by the appropriate software. Thus, for example, larger pixels are obtained, consisting of numerous individual pixels, which represent a field with a hue shift. The adjacent field (second surface area) may, for example, not have a hue offset or have a hue offset in the opposite direction, so that this generally results in a black field type and a white field type (in the first or second surface areas) in larger than the standard pixel size. The detection of this hue offset(s) can, for example, take place as mentioned in the above publications. For example, decor with unchanged color tones can be stored in memory. This decor is a field of single signals, which are then subtracted from certain visual information data, more precisely, from its signals, so that then a field with black and white pixels remains as a value, which displays invisible signs in the form of a protected trademark and / or protected industrial design. If an illegal printout by a counterfeit manufacturer due to a different printer or due to a poor quality scanner should already result in a color tone shift as a whole, then this color tone shift will first be recognized by the software application and, when the application knows the correct color coordinate values, is shifted in the direction of the correct color values. coordinates, so that again the correct color coordinates are available as a starting point for subsequent analysis, in order to subtract stored data and signals from them, and thereby make previously invisible characters visible. It is also possible to consider the hue shift only in the form of stepped gray levels, and also here to recognize the luminance shift present in the source data.

Preferably, the visible indicium is a pattern composed of oversized pixels of at least 2 mm x 2 mm. This means that these pixels are made up of many single pixels. This facilitates not only the introduction of the sign, but also its detection.

Preferably, the decorative paper or decorative film is a covering material (lining material) for furniture surfaces, furniture films, walls, floors or ceilings.

A printed decorative paper or a printed decorative film is flatly applied to a carrier piece, this carrier piece being, for example, a board.

Optionally, the load-bearing part consists of wood, fiber material or synthetic material.

The printing of the decorative paper or decorative film takes place in a so-called continuous printing process, primarily by gravure or digital printing methods. With these methods, the required high qualities can be achieved.

Preferably, the décor is a wood imitation, a stone replication or a textile texture, the embedded indicium being different. This means that the embedded sign is not a wood imitation when the decor is a wood imitation, is not a replication when the decor is a stone replication, and is not a textile texture.

As mentioned above, the mark is preferably composed of pixels and forms a pattern. Of course, optionally, a word, or a word/industrial design, or a registered and protected industrial design can also be used as a mark.

Preferably, the sign is at least 20×20 mm in size and/or consists of at least 8×8 oversized pixels, which in particular have, as mentioned, 2×2 mm.

Additional decor identification patterns, individual for a specific decor and invisible to the human eye, can also be embedded and printed in the decor. These individual decor identification patterns serve as an unambiguous, decor-specific signal that an application can register. This means that the user can, for example, after photographing the decor with his mobile phone, not only recognize the aforementioned symbol in the application, but also request via the application to receive specific information about the decor, such as the designation of the decor, the manufacturer, the properties of the decor or also the cost. If necessary, information can thus be obtained as to whether the decor just photographed is supposedly or even reliably plagiarized. Optionally, for this also, the structure of individual extremely small pixels can be a code that cannot be copied by conventional scanners and printers. Also, the noise generated by the scan can be used to compare with the original data and identify the copy.

As mentioned above, data for a particular decor can be stored in the software application or via an Internet connection on the server, which can be requested by the application as soon as a particular decor identification pattern is identified.

At the edge, for example at the corners of a sign, invisible codes can be embedded in the décor, which are unambiguous for the type of décor. The user can then query the decor type via the app and the external database.

Other features and advantages of the invention follow from the following description and from the following drawings, to which reference is made.

The drawings show:

Fig. 1 - decor produced by the method according to the invention with included, made visible signs,

Fig. 2 - sign according to Fig. 1 without decor,

Fig. 3 are the individual process steps of the method according to the invention, and

Fig. 4 is a step of the method for manufacturing a decorative piece provided with decorative paper or a decorative film according to the invention.

Below, a method for manufacturing and anti-copy protection of a printed decorative paper or a printed decorative film 10 by which a decorative piece is manufactured will be explained.

Such a decorative detail can be made in the form of a furniture surface, in the form of a wall, floor or ceiling. Such decorative pieces usually consist of a support piece, in particular a board 12, as well as the aforementioned decorative paper or decorative film 10, which are connected to each other over the entire area by means of a roll 14, as shown in a stylized form in FIG. four.

Such decorative papers include so-called base papers in the form of high-tech specialty papers applied using aqueous or solvent-based ink printing systems. After printing, the decorative paper is impregnated, the pre-impregnated paper is optionally lacquered and pressed onto the carrier 12. Optionally, printed lacquered pre-impregnated paper can be adhered to the carrier.

As an alternative to paper, printed decorative films are used for the same purpose and by means of the same manufacturing steps or similar manufacturing steps. Such films usually consist of thermoplastic synthetic materials such as PVC (polyvinyl chloride), PP (polypropylene), PET (polyethylene terephthalate) and the like.

The load-bearing parts usually consist of wood, fiber materials or synthetic materials. Of course, other materials can also be used, which are, for example, laminated onto a decorative paper or a decorative film, such as mineral materials, metals or mixed forms of all of the above materials.

The decorative paper or decorative film is decorated by gravure printing or digital printing, which are, for example, wood imitations, stone reproductions, photorealistic images, as well as graphic elements or textile textures and fantasy patterns.

In FIG. 1 shows the decor, here is an imitation of wood, which is created on a computer. This can, for example, be due to the fact that individual sections of the tree are photographed and then subjected to additional digital processing in order to reproduce the ideal wooden decor, which, on the one hand, looks natural, that is, real, and on the other hand, the structure of the decor clearly is not so perfect that at first glance it may be considered too ideal or artificial. Accordingly, digital visual information is generated on the computer for this desired decor, by means of which the decor can be produced by gravure printing or digital printing.

This decor is embedded on the computer with the character 18, which is again shown separately in FIG. 2, and which is a protected, registered trademark and/or registered, protected industrial design.

Embedding the mark 18 occurs such that the visual information data that was previously created for the desired decor is minimally changed so that the human eye does not see these changes when the modified visual information data is subsequently printed.

Thus, in FIG. 1 shows an image that does not exist in reality, since the sign 18 is visible in addition to the simulated tree. However, it should be clarified here that the sign 18 is relatively large, has a size of at least 20×20 mm, and in this case consists of individual pixels, namely fields of at least 8×8 pixels, in this case 10×10 pixels. . Some fields are shown in black, others are transparent. Each pixel, the identification pixel 20, is provided with a reference designation, of course, consists for printing and for visual information of several single pixels, depending on the respective software, possibly a scanner or printer.

By embedding the mark, the original original visual information data for the desired decor is changed. This altered visual information would result in a décor being printed that is indistinguishable to the human eye from the original original décor.

How the mark is embedded has already been explained in the introductory part of this specification with reference to three patent applications/patents. These methods are also applicable to the described examples.

The change in the visual information data and thus the change in the printed decoration is carried out in such a way that it is registered by means of a scanner (this also includes cameras, in particular smartphones or tablets) and is displayed when the scanned image is printed out.

In the usual case, after printing on a decorative paper or a decorative film to form the desired decor by means of modified visual information data, this original is registered by the counterfeit manufacturer by means of cameras or high-quality scanners and corresponding copies are printed.

The computer 22, which includes not only conventional computers but also smartphones, tablets and the like, stores a software application, which also means that the application accesses the server and the software or part of the software or application is executed there.

Connected to the computer 22 is a camera 21 (for smartphones or tablets, this is an integrated camera), through which the camera shown in FIG. 1 decor can be photographed.

Also associated with the computer 22 is a monitor 24 which, in the case of a smartphone or tablet, is a monitor built into it.

The software application is configured such that it is photographed by the camera 21 as shown in FIG. 3, the decor image 10 filters out the embedded mark 18 and thus the protected trademark and/or registered, protected industrial design, and displays it via the monitor 24 as shown in FIG. 3.

Individual black dots 20 are, for example, an area in which a slight hue shift is introduced, and white areas in a square field of 10×10 pixels are areas in which no hue shift or other perceptible hue shifts are introduced.

On a computer or internet-connected server 30, for example, character 18 is stored and therefore readable. plots for agreement with the sign, so that processing is faster.

By means of the visual information data obtained from the photograph (the scan must also fall under the term "photo"), the signal values are obtained, from which the predetermined wood decor signal values are subtracted, which are also stored on the computer or on the server 30, so that areas with a shift in color tone are displayed, there are black areas. In this way, it is not the preserved sign that is supposedly showing the sign hidden in the image that is displayed, but in fact only the sign on the photographed decor. Since the illegal copying of this mark constitutes an infringement of the right to an industrial design and/or an infringement of the right to an industrial design, the manufacturer of the counterfeit is an infringer of the right to the trademark and/or industrial design.

Signs 18 are applied to the decor repeatedly, preferably at a distance from each other. This means that not all of the decor is completely "paved" with this sign, but rather numerous signs 18 are embedded in the decor at random, either evenly or unevenly.

Sign size 18 at least 20x20mm is so large that it can be accurately photographed with a smartphone when the entire decor is photographed.

These decors are printed in a continuous printing process. This means that paper or film is unwound from a roll so that wide and infinitely long webs are formed.

The decor pattern itself is repeated after at least a few meters.

Additionally, data can also be embedded in the decor via steganography, whereby the computer 22 or server 30 then recognizes the decor itself and can display data on the monitor 24 that contains information about a particular decor, manufacturer, order number, properties, etc.

This data may be stored on the computer 22 or on the server 30. Of course, when using the server, an internet connection 32 is required between the server 30 and the computer 22.

By means of steganography appropriate patterns are used to identify the decor, which consist of single, very small pixels, which could not be seen in FIG. one.

However, these decor identification patterns, when printed and previously scanned by the counterfeit manufacturer, must not be reproduced on the counterfeit. Under certain conditions, the steganography technique used may make it impossible to scan or print with conventional devices.

Claims (19)

1. A method for making a decorative paper or a decorative film for creating a surface of a decorative part and preventing illegal copying, characterized by the following steps: A) creation of digital visual information data that defines the desired decor (10), B) embedding the sign (18) in the visual information data of the desired decor with the creation of modified visual information data, and when printing the modified visual information data, the changes are imperceptible to the human eye and thus the embedded sign is imperceptible to the human eye, C) printing on a decorative paper or a decorative film by means of modified visual information data to form the desired decor with an embedded mark, D) providing a software application that is stored on a computer (22) associated with the camera (21), E) providing a monitor (24) that is connected to a computer (22), E) moreover, the software application is designed in such a way that it filters the embedded sign (18) from the image photographed by the camera and displays it on the monitor (24), moreover, the sign (18) is a pattern composed of pixels (20) exceeding the standard size, at least 2×2 mm in size. 2. The method according to p. 1, characterized in that the decorative paper or decorative film is the material for covering the surfaces of furniture, walls, floors or ceilings. 3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the printed paper or the printed decorative film is designed for planar application on the support part (12). 4. A method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the printing takes place in an endless printing process, in particular intaglio printing or digital printing. 5. A method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the embedded mark (18) is a registered, protected trademark and/or a registered, protected industrial design. 6. A method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the decor is a wood imitation, a stone replication or a textile texture, and that the embedded sign is made different from them. 7. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the sign (18) has a size of at least 20×20 mm. 8. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the sign (18) consists of at least 8×8 pixels. 9. Method according to claim 8, characterized in that each pixel has a size of at least 2×2 mm. 10. A method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the décor is embedded or printed with a décor identification pattern that is individual for a particular décor and invisible to the human eye. 11. The method according to claim 10, characterized in that, in the software application or via Internet connection, the server (30) stores data for a specific decor, which can be requested by the application as soon as a specific decor identification pattern is identified. 12. Method according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the sign is optically superimposed on the original decor.

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