Aug. 1, 2005—Radio frequency identification is increasingly being talked about as a potential tool to authenticate products and reduce counterfeiting. But the technology has some shortcomings. For one, any person trying to confirm the authenticity of a product would need to have an RFID interrogator, or reader, and access to a network to get a product's unique ID and check its history in an online database. For another, the tags can be removed physically from a legitimate product and placed on a counterfeit one. One company believes it can solve both problems.

DuPont Authentication Systems (DAS), a joint venture between DuPont and Keystone Technologies, has developed an anticounterfeiting technology, dubbed Izon, that uses photopolymers to create a three-dimensional image.


Photopolymers are new carbon-based substances that are sensitive to light and can be used to create 3-D images through a process called stereolithography (a computer-controlled laser draws 3-D objects in the material). DAS has created a proprietary photopolymer that is used in the Izon authentication system, which the firm claims cannot easily be duplicated.

The 3-D image can be used to visually confirm that the item is genuine. It can also be integrated with an RFID label or tag. The benefit? If someone tries to remove the label on a legitimate item and put it on a counterfeit one, the image is destroyed.