UATAG (unique authentication tag) — it is patented solution for product originality verification and counterfeit protection based on a two-level authentication technology: physical — the uniqueness of the broken glass cracks, and digital — blockchain.
- If you are a brand owner trying to protect the identity of your items,
- If you want to make your customers confident that they buy originals that stand up to the brand’s high standards,
- If you are concerned about product diversion and counterfeit,
- If you need an effective tool to determine authenticity,
UATAG will meet these needs!
We have proposed an easy to integrate and impossible to replicate unique authentication tag that uses physical characteristics of the glass (cracks) and blockchain technology (to keep track of all the issued tags) that provide 100% originality protection for brands and customers.
UATAG labels greatly simplify the process of product originality authentication. For the consumers, products with UATAG protection signal a guarantee of authenticity as well as a certain minimum standard of quality and service.
1. Item-level tagging
Manufacturer attaches the UATAG identifier to each product item as it’s made. Each tag consists of:
- Glass plate with unique crack pattern — it is a kind of product fingerprint.
- Unique serialized alphanumeric product reference number for each tag.
- Individual QR code that serves as a link to the individual tag image page on the UATAG website.
2. Real-Time visual product authentication
A regular smartphone equipped with any QR scanner app can be used to verify if the product is AUTHENTIC or FAKE.
- Customer scan the QR code.
- Accesses the base and sees the image of this particular tag from the secure database.
- Compares glass pattern with the one that is attached to the product. If they match — the product is original!
UATAG allows a consumer to verify the authenticity of origin of the product prior to purchasing it for an unlimited number of times, eliminating the possibility of erroneously identifying the counterfeit product as genuine. Thus, he can make a conscious decision about the purchase and is sure of the originality of the purchased goods.
For more information visit “How it works” page.
It is impossible. The UATAG is one–time use only. Any attempt to remove it, will cause the face material damage.
It is almost impossible, because, the glass plate is placed into a protective case that prevents it from the physical damage.
But, we do not exclude such possibility, because nothing is safe from intentional damage.
One of the key challenges in designing the UATAG solution was to find a perfect balance between:
Physical- the label needed to have an analog uniqueness and remain securely attached to the product throughout its journey to the consumer without a chance of accidental breakage.
Digital - individual tags are securely protected against falsification or copying. The system prohibits any unauthorized tampering.
Blockchain solves the problem of trust in a platform’s security through:
- Distributed record verification that even we as a platform cannot modify.
- Transactions time and geo stamping in the blockchain.
The Blockchain technology is experiencing rapid development especially in recent years when the Blockchain technology started to walk out of the geek community and rapidly gained worldwide attention in various industries. Blockchain technology was originally developed as a part of the digital currency Bitcoin. But the two are not the same. Blockchain can support a wide range of applications, and it’s already being used for peer-to-peer payment services, supply chain tracking and more.
At its heart, a blockchain is a record of transactions. These transactions can be any movement goods or secure data. It stores the information in a way that makes it virtually impossible to add, remove or change data without being detected by other users.
A blockchain gather data into blocks, and then chain it securely using cryptography – like a traditional computer database. Each transaction is time-stamped. So all information is sequential, which helps avoid duplicate entities.
We believe in the potential of blockchain technology to improve anti-counterfeit measures in different industries and have a significant positive social impact. A blockchain, as a part of two levels UATAG originality verification can help buyers quickly establish that a product and its seller can be trusted.
The blockchain technology verifies the originality of goods using the unique serial numbers tagged at the point of UATAG label production. Each product has a recorded history permanently recorded in the blockchain. We can provide verified history for each product.
Blockchain provides:
- Control of supply chain.
- Security of transaction.
- Careful vetting of suppliers.
UATAG build a trust free and distributed business ecosystem based on the physical and digital assets while being cost effective. It all boils down to this — reliance and sustainability.
To bridge the virtual and physical protection, authentication tag is labelled with a unique number. The exact form is dependent on the product in question. The unique number could be the public key, in part or whole, of the manufacturer’s private key corresponding to the product.
The number is displayed as a QR code on. Scanning the QR code will provide the information to verify the product’s originality, making it impossible to sell counterfeit products. The design and process of the verification technically just need a mobile phone to enter or scan the unique number and verify the path (authenticity) of the product.
At the end of it all, the primary goal of UATAG is to give buyers confidence in whatever purchase the make. When customers are certain of the authenticity of the products, they are more likely to part with large amounts of cash than when they harbor doubts. As long as customers remain satisfied with their products, brands stay in business to supply this product to the market.
Yes, it is possible to copy QR code and a serial number, but they are only an addition to the basic protection. The main role here is played by glass cracks. It is impossible to duplicate crack pattern due to the glass unique properties.
Together: plate of cracked glass + QR code + serial number form an anti-copy, highly secure anti-counterfeit solution.
Manufacturers the world over can use UATAG security label to safeguard goods from tampering, counterfeiting, and diversion. UATAG not only authenticates products to consumers, but also protects the company’s brand and consumer health and safety, and reduces the risk of lost revenues and liability issues.
The most promising are using UATAG to protect brands across such industries as:
- High-end products (footwear, clothing, accessories, ectronics, medical equipment).
- Works of art (museums masterpieces, paintings, collectables).
- High value cargo (logistics, transportation).
Please contact us for pricing.
UATAG is headquartered in Lviv, Ukraine, with a Regional Office in Ontario, Canada. If you are interested in engaging in an innovative partnership with UATAG to benefit you, please contact us.
UATAG solution for product authentication was founded in 2016. In 2017, the founders have been awarded a patent for a device for the marking and verification of the authenticity of origin of goods and protection against counterfeiting.
- Existing protection methods are mostly designed for manufacturers, not for buyers. They require specialized devices, mobile applications, or specific knowledge, on the basis of which, the originality can be proven.
- Unlike most anti-counterfeit technologies available on the market today, UATAG do not require any adapted devices or applications. It can be detected using a smartphone equipped with a standard QR scanner before the purchase, with a naked eye.
- Most of the technologies are really difficult to fake, but nevertheless, it's real. UATAG is 100% non-reproducible.
- Apart from its main function - protection against counterfeiting, UATAG can also play a role of a stylish product’s accessory.
- UATAG is impossible to re-label or reuse.
- UATAG is easily noticeable when tampered with.
UATAG gives 100% protection guarantee against product forgery and counterfeit and is designed for brand owners who care about customers that value originality.
The authentic origin of the product is verified by visually comparing the unique crack pattern of the product identifier with its electronic representation obtained from the database on the screen of customer's smartphone.
A man perceives the surrounding world only through the photons - light particles that are reflected from objects and fall on the retina of the eye. In the retina of each of our eyes, there are about 126 million light-sensitive cells. The brain decrypts the information received from these cells about the direction and energy of the photons falling on it and transforms it into a variety of forms, colors, and intensity of illumination of surrounding objects.
Thanks to advancement in physics and biology, the boundaries of natural vision can be defined. Concerning any visible objects, we have a certain "threshold", below which we cease to distinguish among them. Man is not able to see neither radio waves emitted by electronic devices, nor small bacteria with the naked eye.
The ability to see an object does not depend entirely on its physical size or distance, but on the fact that there will be at least several photons emitted by them on our retina. The only thing that an eye needs to see something is a certain amount of light emitted or reflected on it by an object. Everything is reduced to the number of photons reaching the retina. No matter how small the light source is, even if it lasts for a second, a person is still able to see it if it emits a sufficient number of photons.
There are limitations in resolution or acuity of vision. The acuity of vision is defined as the ability to distinguish between elements such as a point or a line, separate objects that do not merge with adjacent objects or with a background.
In fact, visual acuity can be described in the same way as the resolution of a computer monitor - in the minimum size of pixels, which the eye can distinguish as separate points.
In theory, as the study shows, the acuity of our vision is limited to the ability to distinguish between about 120 pixels per angular degree (unit of angular measurement).
A practical illustration of the limits of the acuity of human vision can be an object with the area of a nail located at the distance of the elongated hand, with applied 60 horizontal and 60 vertical lines alternately in white and black colors, forming the shape of the chessboard. Apparently, this is the smallest pattern that the human eye is still able to distinguish.
According to this principle, ophthalmologists use the tables for checking the acuity of our vision. The most famous table by Syvtsev which shows the rows of black capital letters on a white background the font size of which decreases with each subsequent line. The visual acuity of a person is determined by the size of the font he/she ceases to clearly see the contours of the letters and begins to confuse them.
The limit of visual acuity is due to the fact that we are not able to see the biological cell dimensions of which by the naked eye are only a few micrometers, but there is no doubt that the eye will be able to distinguish small half-millimetre details.
The ability to distinguish between millions of small parts, to capture single photons, and to see galaxies at a distance of several quintillions of kilometres is a pretty good result, if we take into account that our vision is provided by a pair of jelly-like balls in the ophthalmic, connected with one and a half kilogram of porous mass in the cranium.
What is the difference between the camera and the human eye?
- How does the eye work?
The eye cannot be compared to a typical flash camera. Rather, the eye works like video shooting. Man visualizes the environment with the help of two eyes while increasing its resolution. He/she move his / her eyes to gather information about the environment that surrounds him/her or the object on which the attention is focused. Further, the eye sends pictures to the brain, and the brain combines eye signals into the plots with the highest resolution, with the existing number of photoreceptors in the retina.
- How does the scanner work?
The principle of the scanner is to illuminate a particular object or process with light and measure with a light-sensitive light sensor the brightness of the light flux passed through by a transparent or illuminated by an opaque original.
Each sensor converts the amount of light into the electric voltage, which enters the input of the analog-to-digital converter. The latter converts it into a digital code that enters the digital signal processing processor. The processor performs primary processing, compression, and transfer of digital data into memory.
The number of sensors per unit length of the original is called the optical resolution of the scanner. It defines the spatial resolution of the image. There are techniques to increase the optical resolution through hardware or software interpolation.
- What is better: an eye or a camera?
According to Dr. Roger Clarke, a digital technology professor who participates in NASA's space imagery projects, the resolution of the eye is approximately 576 megapixels at an angle of 120 degrees. The human eye perceives the field of vision close to 180 degrees. That is, the full angle of human vision will have even more megapixels. For comparison, professional cameras have up to 60 megapixels. So, if the human eye were a digital camera, its resolution would be 576 megapixels.
Referring to the foregoing, we state that the distinction between the small parts of the image (the cracks) on the bar to identify the originality of the naked eye will not be different (or will even be better), from the scanned image on the screen of the smartphone.
Example: Can you find two identical glass patterns?
UATAG invention is based on known physical properties of amorphous glass material. The essential property of glass required for the implementation of the invention is the fact that glass always has internal tensions occurring in the process of glass production. The rapid cooling of heated glass results in that its outer layers cool faster than inner layers. The difference in temperature occurs as a result of the low thermal conductivity of glass. In materials with high of thermal conductivity, such as metal, the outer and inner layers cool down almost simultaneously and the temperature difference between them is negligible.
Uneven cooling down of the outer and inner layers of glass results in the occurrence of compression and expansion tensions. When the glass is fully cooled down and the temperature of different layers of glass is aligned, the tensions that occurred during the process of cooling down remain.
Inner tensions occur in the glass in the course of the transition of its state from elastic to brittle, i.e. when the glass particles gradually lose their mobility, up to the moment when the movement of the glass particle virtually reaches zero.
In the course of cooling down, the temperature in the outer layer of glass will reduce considerably faster than that of the inner layer. During the first moments of the process of cooling down, while plastic deformations are still possible, the outer layer reduces in volume. At the same time, the inner layer remains flexible and occupies the same volume as before. When the inner layer cools down further, it also seeks to shrink but meets strong resistance from the outer inelastic membrane. If there was a possibility, the inner layer would separate from the outer layer forming a gap between them. However, as the inner layer cannot come off in a cooled state, it is forced to take somewhat larger volume than would correspond to its temperature. This results in stretching tensions within the inner layer and compression tensions in the outer layer, as it is pulled inwards by the inner layer.
When a plate of glass is mechanically damaged, the cracks that form in it will follow the vectors of the compression and stretching tensions mentioned above. This creates a unique crack pattern in the plate.
Thus, the invention is based on the unique pattern of cracks in material, which becomes visible due to the destruction of material and optical refraction of light.
