BrandWatch Technologies, a global leader in brand security and product authentication solutions, today announced that Dr Benjamin Eick, director of product engineering, will be presenting at NIP26, the 26th International Conference on Digital Printing Technologies, in Austin, Texas, on 23 September 2010. The presentation, ‘Methods for Producing Covert Barcodes with Authentication Markers’, is part of the Hardware for Printing Inspection Authentication and Forensics session, which will be co-chaired by BrandWatch’s vice president of business development, Steve Delepine.
During his presentation, Dr Eick will discuss how new ink technology is allowing manufacturers and brand owners to circumvent the limitations of covert barcodes by changing the way they are printed. He will outline how to connect cutting-edge authentication markers with printing ink technology and identification hardware to produce covert barcode systems while maintaining the integrity of customer-facing overt barcodes.
“Despite emerging identification solutions over the past several years, barcodes have maintained their place as the most commonly used method of defense for product authentication,” stated Dr Eick. “Given the amount of data that can be stored on a small amount of space, manufacturers continue to use barcodes for everything from track and trace to two-part authentication. Given new authentication and marketing capabilities provided by new scanning, photographic and mobile technologies, barcodes are not likely to go away any time soon. During my presentation, I will discuss how we can enhance the printing process using multilayered techniques to make them more secure and prevent them from being replicated by counterfeiters.”
Dr Eick has led BrandWatch’s development of brand security solutions and field detection systems since 2008. He is responsible for developing the company’s SecuriTagg product line, a unique formulation that provides four distinct layers of covert brand security protection. Prior to directing product engineering for BrandWatch Technologies, Dr Eick served as a research assistant for the Youngblood Research Group and taught material science at Purdue University. Dr Eick earned his doctorate in materials engineering from Purdue.
For more information about BrandWatch Technologies’ authentication solutions, visit the company’s website.