The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 20, 1996
Filed:
Aug. 30, 1994
Louis H Liang, Los Altos, CA (US);
Daniel A Marinello, Burlington, KY (US);
William J Ryan, Underhill, VT (US);
Angstrom Technologies, Inc., Florence, KY (US);
Abstract
Accessory apparatus for authenticating articles is used in conjunction with existing readers or scanners of articles bearing stored data, such as credit cards or identification cards. The accessory apparatus is disposed before, after, on, under, inside, or adjacent to existing reader apparatus, to have a view of the article whose data is to be read. Information in addition to the stored data is coded on the article in non-visible indicia and is detected by the accessory authenticating apparatus. This coded additional information may be related to identification data stored in the article by the article's normal storage mechanism, such as a magnetic stripe or an embedded memory IC chip. The additional information may be coded in various combinations of predetermined characteristics of light emitted by the article to be authenticated when the article is irradiated with non-visible light from the accessory apparatus. The code combinations are preferably complex combinations of the various radiation characteristics. The article is irradiated at a high enough frequency (above 10,000 Hz modulation) for rapid determination of authenticity, and for reading and decoding standard bar codes. Visible and/or audible indicators alert a user when the authentication process detects an invalid card. With certain arrangements, an invalid card may be blocked from being read by the existing reader or scanner. The accessory apparatus may be connected to interrupt the normal communication channel of the existing reader or scanner with which it is used, when an article fails to be authenticated. The accessory apparatus may be used as an adjunct to existing readers or scanners of information on such cards or other articles, to perform authentication functions without replacing or obsoleting such existing readers or scanners.