Patent ID: 9710902
Date: 2017-07-18
CPC Classifications: G04B,G06K,G06T,G07D,H04N

Claim:
1. A method of authenticating an article of manufacture, the surface of the article of manufacture featuring predetermined, reproducible macroscopic characteristics as well as random or pseudo-random, non-reproducible microstructure noise characteristics, the random or pseudo-random, non-reproducible microscopic noise characteristics rendering the article physically unique, the method comprising: acquiring an image of the visible feature using a predetermined imaging technology to produce a visible feature image with an imaging lighting orientation and an imaging resolution sufficient to show a least one article surface microstructure feature at the pixel level; generating an authentication pattern based on the visible feature image; querying, with the imaging device, for a reference product item, a reference authentication pattern in a predetermined central server database; receiving from the predetermined central server a reference authentication pattern; comparing, with the imaging device, the authentication pattern with the received reference authentication pattern; and authenticating, with the imaging device, the article of manufacture if the authentication pattern correlates with the reference authentication pattern within a predefined pattern matching threshold.