Patent Publication Number: US-2015076235-A1

Title: Chipless nanotube electromagnetic identification system for anti-counterfeiting, authorization, and brand protection

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention is related to a chipless nanotube RFID system for anti-counterfeiting, protection, and the authorization of such brand products as branded spirits, liquors, and wines, safety-critical items such as food, and life-threatening products such as medicines. 
     BACKGROUND 
     High Valuable and branded products are facing serious counterfeiting issues, especially with the global supplier chain and economic growth. Huge losses are occurring daily for the companies who are making or selling the products. On the other hand, consumes are also the victims of faked high brand products. There are serious safety issues and sometime life threatening crimes due to faked medicines or toxic foods from counterfeiting products. Consumers, manufacturers, and governments all call for anti-counterfeit innovative solutions. 
     Prior arts provide conventional protective techniques and methods. U.S. Pat. No. 5,729,365 disclosed the optical holograms for authentication and tamper-protection. It is common to provide a printed label for anti-counterfeiting and authentication. 
     Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been widely used for automatic identification, asset tracking, and counterfeiting of brand products, etc. Most of these RFID tags or transponders include a chip for storing the item information and a radio antenna for wireless communication or data transmission between the reader or the interrogator and the tag. Prior art of such tags can be illustrated in  FIG. 1 , from typical patents, for instance, [1]. The cost of the chip is relatively high, comparing with traditional barcodes used billions each year. The tag cost with the chip limits its applications and the replacement of the barcode. The chipless tag is new category in the RFID family. The tag usually consists of multi-resonators. In order to accommodate sufficient bits for item unique information, these tags with multiple resonators made from metal elements such as copper strips are very large in size, comparing with the chipped tag. Specially, fully-passive chipless tag working in microwave frequency bands has typical size from tens of centimeters with only a few bits. It is not be satisfied for wide anti-counterfeiting applications where the assets or items are small in volume or area. Therefore, current chipless RFID tags found very limited applications due to their limited bits or/and large size. 
     Another deficient in current chipped RFID tag with antennas is the un-separable between the chip and antennas [2]. Once separated after manufacturing, the data inside the chip is not readable since the signal path from the chip to the antenna is broken. Although the feature can be used for anti-counterfeiting of the liquid bottle with a sealing cap in a destructive way [3, U.S. Pat. No. 7,176,796], the reuse or recycling of the original products become unpractical after the first use. There are also the quality and reliability programs for the customers to return products with any manufacturing defects, which requires the identification of original manufacturers and repair/replacement responsibilities. There are therefore needs for non-destructive protection and identification while providing the anti-counterfeiting function. 
     As a result, there is a strong demand and practical requirement for the antennas or resonators that can work at multiple frequencies, multiple locations, and much shorter radio frequency lengths. It is also desirable that the separable antenna elements. It is even more advantageous for providing nondestructive methods for anti-counterfeiting and product recycling. The huge consumer market calls for the chipless tags that are capable of anti-counterfeiting and data safety with small size for item-level RFID applications. Finally, it needs to be manufactured by low cost technologies. 
     BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     Present invention provides unique solutions for anti-counterfeiting by using chipless nanotube patterns as the RFID tag. These nanotubes can be the resonator elements with different length and patterns when the RFID reader activates them in the right RF conditions. The sufficient bits can be achieved by the plurality of nanotube antennas or resonators with very small size in multiple antenna combinations and two-dimensional patterns or even one-dimensional patterns just like traditional bar codes. The radio frequencies of these nanotubes can reach millimeter wave range or tens to hundreds GHz frequency bands with each resonator element length from millimeters down to microns. Furthermore, the nanotube resonators can be fabricated by low-cost manufacturing methods such as printing technologies. The special fabrication substrate with the nanotube dispersion method is disclosed in the embodiments of another invention [4, Application No 61/698,657]. The chipless nanotube RFID tag is small, transparent, and even invisible, making extra safety for anti-counterfeiting purposes physically. Instead of destructive method for anti-counterfeiting, we disclose the recoverable anti-counterfeiting tag with at least two pieces of the antenna elements. One part is on or inside the bottle cap and another part is located on or inside the bottle body so that the two antenna elements must be the one combined ID enabled by the software that will be our another invention. We also provide three pieces and one tag ID solution for security protection combining both destructive and recoverable designs. Therefore, the multi-level purposes of anti-counterfeiting, authorization, brand protection, even recycling, and repairing/reworking are all served well by this invention. 
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     The accompanying figures, where are incorporated in and form part of the specifications, serve to further illustrate various embodiments and to explain various principles and advantages all in accordance with the present invention. The foregoing aspects and the others will be readily appreciated by the skilled artisans from the following descriptions. 
       FIG. 1  illustrates a prior art of a typical RFID tag  100  with a semiconductor IC chip  112  as the digital information storage. At least one antenna with traditional metal elements  111  is necessary to receive the power from the reader and active the chip with the stored data. Another antenna or the same antenna can transmit the data back to the reader for identification. The carrier structure of the RFID tag is the substrate  113 . 
       FIG. 2  is the prior art of typical anti-counterfeiting patent (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 7,176,796 B2) where the sealing cap  212  serves as the antenna, therefore, must be metal. The chip  213  is connected by the connection wires  214  with the cap  212 , the antenna. Once the cap is opened, the RFID tag is destroyed automatically in order to provide the anti-counterfeiting and protection. It is a destructive design for protection. The antenna (the cap) and the bottle  210  attached with the chip can not be separated for the tag identification. 
       FIG. 3  is our first embodiment example in which the two pieces of nanotube antennas  313  and  314  are combined to provide the unique RF identification with recycling and recoverable capabilities in addition to anti-counterfeiting. 
       FIG. 4  is another exemplary embodiment for the destructive method by using nanotube resonator elements  413  as the chipless tag  400 . 
       FIG. 5  is yet another embodiment of this invention. The two dimensional nanotube antenna patterns are formed by combining the cap antenna part  513  and the bottle antenna resonators  514 . It is the recoverable design with more bits available in a compact design. 
       FIG. 6  is yet another embodiment example of this patent. The random nanotube patterns  614  can be used as the second part of the tag antenna, combining with the first part  613  on or inside the cap  612  with more bits and safe identification. 
       FIG. 7  presents the most security method and design embodiment of this invention. Three pieces of the antenna elements can be combined to generate more than one RF IDs with more bits. It provides both destructive and recoverable solutions. 
       FIG. 8  is other example embodiment of this invention. The destructive protection method can be realized by the RF reader  815  after the verification and authorization processes. 
       FIG. 9  is yet the other embodiment of present invention for anti-counterfeiting medicines and drugs where the drug bottle has sufficient size and however the individual pills are very small. Only one or two or few nanotubes are necessary for the one pill or body surface. 
    
    
     Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements or nanotubes in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to actual scales. For instance, some of these nanotube elements in the figures may be exaggerated relatively to other elements to help to improve understanding of the embodiments of the present invention. 
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION AND BEST MODE OF IMPLEMENTATION 
     Definitions 
     For the purpose of the disclosure and embodiments, the term “nanotube” in this invention is meant to include any high aspect ratio linear or curved nano-scaled structures, including single-walled, double-walled, and multi-walled nanotubes, semiconducting or conductive nanotubes, nanowires, nanotube bundles, nanotube yarns, nanowires, and nano-columns, and nano-beams which can be used as resonators or can be made to vibrate in an electrical or/and electromagnetic fields. These preferably have a length from 1 micron, to 1 millimeter, and to tens of centimeters, depending on the radio frequencies and the tag size requirements. The diameters have a width or diameter from 0.2 nm to 1 micron, and to 1 millimeter. Examples of the present nanotubes also include such metallic as Ni, Cu, Ag, and Au nanowires. Preferred carbon nanotubes have metallic or conducting properties with one, two, or multi-walls and directional or anisotropic conductivity. 
     For the purpose of present invention, the term “electromagnetic signal” is used to mean either electromagnetic waves moving through air or dielectric or electrons moving through wires or both in any a frequency or a frequency range. 
     For present disclosure, the term “radio” is used to mean the wireless transmission or communication through electromagnetic waves in any a frequency or a frequency range from 1 MHz to 1 GHz, and to 1 THz. Preferred millimeter waves are frequencies from 30 GHz to 300 GHz. 
     For present disclosure, the term “tag” is used to mean a layer of nanotube patterns and a substrate with any shape of an oval, a square, a rectangle, a triangle, a circle, or polygons, and any size from 1 micron to 1 millimeter, and to tens of centimeters. It can also be multi-layers with different nanotube patterns and substrate materials. 
       FIG. 3  is our first embodiment example in which the two pieces of nanotube antennas  313  and  314  are combined to provide the unique RF identification. The cap  312  and the bottle  310  can be separated. Once putting them together, the RF ID can be recovered. If one piece is faked either the cap  312  or the bottle  310 , the RF identification can be detected and verified by the reader software. 
       FIG. 4  is another exemplary embodiment for the destructive method by using nanotube resonator elements  413  as the chipless tag  400 . Once the cap  412  is opened, the tag antenna elements  413  will be destroyed naturally for the first-level brand protection. 
       FIG. 5  is yet another embodiment of this invention. The two dimensional nanotube antenna patterns are formed by combining the cap antenna part  513  and the bottle antenna resonators  514 . It is the recoverable design with more bits available in a compact design. 
       FIG. 6  is yet another embodiment example of this patent. The random nanotube patterns  614  can be used as the second part of the tag antenna, combining with the first part  613  on or inside the cap  612 . More bits and safety ID can be realized by the reader software design. 
       FIG. 7  presents the most security method and design embodiment of this invention. Three pieces of the antenna elements can be combined to generate more than one RF IDs with more bits. It provides both destructive and recoverable solutions. When the cap is opened, the first destructive protection is enabled by the antenna piece  713 . However, if the antenna elements  714  and  715  are matched another ID in the system, the genuine product can be still identified for recycling or repairing, or reworking purposes. It can be used to recycle the bottle and the cap to further prevent faking of the brand products. 
       FIG. 8  is other example embodiment of this invention. The destructive protection method can be realized by the RF reader  815  after the verification and authorization processes. Certain nanotubes, e.g, presenting by the dash lines, can be destroyed by raising the radio frequencies power high enough in certain frequency selectively. The nanotube length will be determined and responded to the specific radio frequency from the reader. Therefore, after authorization and identification, the tag can be destroyed by randomly selecting the nanotubes for burning down. It prevents the bottles or containers from refilling faked liquids or wines. It is also an option for recycling if we reconfigure the tag by new data and store them for further identification. Therefore, it is protected or recycled by both hardware (nanotube antenna patterns) and software. It provides ultimate security, protection, and also options for recycling of cost saving. Moreover, the destructive actions can be even performed after the manufacturing of tags by the third party in order to provide the process control and safety. This makes our invention very unique so that the tags cannot be faked or copied by the third party or criminals. 
       FIG. 9  is yet the other embodiment of present invention for anti-counterfeiting medicines and drugs where the drug bottle has sufficient size and however the individual pills are very small. Only one or two or few nanotubes are necessary for the one pill surface. Moreover, since we also provide protection from the nanotube antenna piece  914  for the cap, the  915  for the bottle, only few pills need the extra bites for combination and identification. It is also a cost-effective solution. This embodiment is also creative since we can combine the tag ID with different sizes of the antenna elements to meet the some critical needs such as a small pill or precious small parts. 
     REFERENCES 
     [1] [1] U.S. Pat. No. 7,551,141, Hadley et al., RFID Strap Capacitively Coupled and Method of Making Same, Jun. 23, 2009. 
     [2] U.S. Pat. No. 6,891,474, Fletcher et al., Electromagnetic Identification Lable for Anti-counterfeiting, Authorization, and Tamper-Protection, May 10, 2005. 
     [3] U.S. Pat. No. 7,176,796, Chen et al., Anti-counterfeiting Sealing Cap with Identification Capability, Feb. 13, 2007. 
     [4] US Provident Patent Application No 61/698,657, Qian, Zhengfang, Nanotube Patterns for Chipless RFID Tags and Methods of Making the Same, Sep. 9, 2012. 
     [5] Zhengfang Qian, Patent Application: Coding and Decoding Methods of Nanotube Chipless RFID Tags.