Anticounterfeiting technology for plastics

Licensing opportunity

Researchers at the Warwick Manufacturing Group at Warwick University have devised a high tech way to add anti-counterfeiting to plastic products as they are cast in the moulding process. The process could cost less than one per cent of the total cost of manufacturing the product.

Project leader, Professor Gordon Smith said there is an enormous amount of interest in anti-counterfeiting technology for plastic products and his group is working on several processes to prevent plastic components being copied. This ‘in mould’ process is the first of them to be developed for use.

“For commercial reasons we cannot detail collaborators but we are now exploring its use with one company that is plagued by the failure of a counterfeit plastic-based safety critical product, which is made to look exactly like their safety critical product and therefore damages their reputation as well as losing them sales.”

The watermark is created as an intrinsic part of the plastic product as it is being moulded and the researchers say it would require very detailed technical knowledge to replicate the process.

Smith says the technology is relevant to manufacturers of products such as DVD s and other types of disc, and to plastic containers used by a range of consumer industries.