Strong Weapons for Product Authentication
- An Anti-Counterfeit Defense
The GenuDOT Product Authentication Solution
is an exclusive method of providing multiple layers
of evidence that the item in question is indeed genuine.
The revolutionary GenuDOT Solution enables an end-to-end,
highly secure process by integrating readers,
software systems and databases; all created by AirGATE expressly for product authentication.
Product Authentication and Anti-Counterfeiting Background
According to the International Anti-Counterfeiting Association (IACA),
counterfeiting is now a worldwide problem that accounts for approximately 5% to 7% of the world trade.
Counterfeit product costs U.S. businesses $200 billion to $250 billion annually.
Counterfeit merchandise is directly responsible for the loss of more than 750,000 American jobs (http://www.iacc.org).
The expansion of worldwide trade, the Internet marketplace explosion, and growing business-to-business e-commerce provides criminals with growing
opportunities for counterfeiting and fraud. Combating these problems with effectiveness requires not just identification but authentication technology
which is cost-effective to use, yet prohibitively expensive or impossible to copy.
GenuDOT – AirGATE’s Global Product Authentication Solution
GenuDOT is a one-of-a-kind authenticating reader network system,
using the world’s smallest RFID chip.
As tiny and affordable as this Hitachi μ-Chip (Mu-Chip) is,
it still provides a trillion times a quadrillion unique ID numbers for product tracking within the system.
The unique combination of these special tags and the GenuDOT processing stands to make counterfeiting impractical - if not impossible.
AirGATE recognized the product authentication marketplace as a large-scale opportunity.
Development began with a clean sheet of paper to create an innovative solution; build a simple, non-privacy-intrusive way to ensure product authenticity.
AirGATE recognized the potential of the special Hitachi μ-Chip through working closely with Hitachi America, Ltd.
The solution evolved to include both a complete series of secure feature-rich reader systems for the Hitachi μ-Chip, and corresponding AirGATE turn-key software.
AirGATE is Hitachi’s first μ-Chip Value Added Reseller in North America.
AirGATE currently offers the sole integrated reader / μ-Chip / firmware / management controller / database authentication system in the Western Hemisphere.
In March 2007, AirGATE announced the development and pending availability of the GenuDOT System,
and demonstrated its capabilities with the Hitachi μ-Chip during the 2007 RFID World conference and exhibition in Texas.
The key factor to the GenuDOT System’s affordability and wide range of potential uses is the very small, yet very secure μ-Chip.
GenuDOT Technology Innovations - The GenuDOT / Hitachi μ-Chip advantage
GenuDOT utilizes the tiny Hitachi 2.4GHz μ-Chip.
Each chip is created with a unique ID number, allowing the identification and authentication of trillions of objects.
AirGATE can provide controlled blocks of numbers for assignment to specific products and customers.
The traceability of individual items can also be of significant value in limiting the scope of product recalls and increasing brand protection.
Hitachi μ-Chips applied to items during manufacturing or packaging gives each product a small, unique "license plate" which can be matched to production lots, outer cases, pallets and customer shipments. By relating individual item codes to customer shipments, diverted product can be traced to its source. The traceability of individual products can be of significant value in limiting the scope of product recalls. The “license plate” nature of the Hitachi μ-Chip unique ID ensures privacy.
Efforts to counterfeit the actual chips and the associated numbers would be thwarted by the nature of the μ-Chip RFID tags and capable GenuDOT readers. The readers in this system are designed with the Hitachi protocol to read the μ-Chip, and Hitachi controls this “Air Protocol” by providing it to only a select few approved manufacturers. Much as a bank vault company would not published diagrams, the chip/reader protocol is confidential. This conscious decision for a non-published approach to RFID should help prevent access to individuals intent on criminal and fraudulent actions.
One cannot write to these chips, or somehow read a chip and write it to a different format RFID chip. The readers will first seek to confirm that the chip in the product is a Hitachi μ-Chip. The μ-Chip number is placed there at time of chip manufacture. A number cannot be written on it later because it is a read-only chip.
Someone trying to defeat this system would be faced with copying the μ-Chip manufacturing process. This is not just any chip, but the smallest RFID chip in the world today, a mere 0.4mm square. Setting up a multi-million dollar process for criminal intent would not be cost effective for even the most industrious crook. After clearing that onerous hurdle, they would have to somehow replicate the selected numbers among trillions upon trillions to choose and manufacture only those numbers to the chips.
An attempt to steal the official tags and integrate them into fake product is averted as well. At the time of product manufacture or packaging at the company, the item with a μ-Chip RFID tag passes a GenuDOT system reader. The unique ID number is read and the item is recorded as issued with that ID number. The criminal would have to somehow read the tag and then somehow get that number into the database of company authorized and issued numbers. This effort would likely be after the company reported the stolen ID numbers to AirGATE. If stolen numbers did ever get into commerce through these complex safeguards, an attempt to authenticate the item would be caught by the updated GenuDOT Authentication System.
Beyond pure authentication applications, the Hitachi μ-Chip is as an attractive solution. It is a fitting approach for applications where a bar code isn't suitable, and more conventional RFID tags are too expensive or too large. The Hitachi μ-Chip is worthy of consideration in areas of identification, traceability and asset management.
GenuDOT Technology Innovations - The GenuDOT Reader Philosophy
GenuDOT introduces a new breed of readers to the North American market. Industry available standard readers and RFID chips were deemed to be less than the best possible for the task of product authentication. If a tag is easily read by many common commercial RFID readers, it is also easily read by those persons that desire to make counterfeit products. If someone can copy or re-write the chip, so can the crook. If everyone has the published specifications as an open standard, then the criminal community does, too. The prospect of ideal brand protection is highest with a closed-loop, private reader solution, with encrypted communications over standard Internet connections.
Many RFID readers do just that – simply read the tag. Without any feedback to the user or attendant, there is no authentication without adding additional cost or complexity to the solution.
AirGATE has developed a series of unique, sophisticated, and highly secure GenuDOT readers. Unlike most simple RFID readers, these come standard with an LED display, lights and sound for an effective authentication process. There is no need for a console computer monitor, and it can control other devices through a serial port.
AirGATE’s intelligent readers require only one wire, drawing its power from the network cable. They can operate either as standalone units or in a network environment with automatic provisioning and recovery after power or network failure.
GenuDOT Technology Innovations – Global Authentication System Management Software
All GenuDOT reader units feature easy to use interfaces and AirGATE’s Global Authentication Protocol. The intelligence of the readers is leveraged through the GenuDOT software system. Turn-key management software provided through ScanCheck Manager insures rapid deployment and adherence to business rules. Dashboard tools provide visual tracking of live authentication.
The active ID numbers are stored in Global Item Authentication (GIA) format which will be downloaded to the readers at the beginning of each user defined period or managed event. These numbers can be imported from several popular file formats. The ScanCheck Manager has the capability of managing unlimited numbers of GIA lists. It also can manage events by maintaining a single active event list in the readers for the current event. It allows the GIA list to be scheduled for unattended download.
The ScanCheck Manager’s dashboard provides a quick glance of the current event, items being scanned, check-in/check-out status if applicable, alerts and error messages. Importantly, it allows certain level of custom development to process the reported activities and send to the host system, if desirable. Last but not least, it can configure the reader individually or in groups to minimize manual effort. This ScanCheck Manager is designed with simplistic user experience and yet robust enough to be a turn-key system.
The GenuDOT Solution is delivered complete and ready to load with the customer’s unique ID numbers from their μ-Chip active inventory. With that simple step as the setup, GenuDOT is ready to go to work. The user will have previously registered the ID numbers as active in the database at the time of product application or attachment. When the μ-Chip is later scanned within that product, the active ID gets verified through multiple layers of database evidence that the product reviewed is in fact authentic.
Summary – AirGATE and GenuDOT Providing RFID Authentication
GenuDOT provides strong product protection technology for the brand owner, the sales channel, and the final customer. AirGATE developed a comprehensive end-to-end authentication system that is easy to implement and operate. The end user interaction with the readers is a key ingredient to providing full feedback to the credential checking process. With the GenuDOT System, AirGATE establishes a new and creative path for those companies with a keen interest in protecting the integrity of their brand value.
AirGATE Technologies, Inc. is a Hitachi America, Ltd. authorized Value Added Reseller of the Hitachi μ-Chip technology. AirGATE GenuDOT μ-Chip readers will read Hitachi μ-Chip tags and inlets supplied and commissioned by AirGATE. Please call 972-747-0051 or write sales@airgatetech.com to discuss your specific product authentication needs.
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