Patent ID: 8905313

Claim:
An indicium that is applied to a surface of an object, comprising: a first printed pattern in a first ink having a first color, wherein the first printed pattern is a 2-D barcode comprising unit cells; and a second printed pattern in a second ink having a second color, wherein the second printed pattern is another 2-D barcode comprising unit cells; wherein the unit cells in the first and second printed patterns are pixelated in arrays of pixels in rows and columns with each pixel having a corresponding row and column address in the respective unit cells, and the second pattern is complimentary to the first pattern in that the first and second printed patterns are printed within the same area of the object, corresponding pixel addresses of the first and second printed patterns are not designated to be printed with both the first ink and the second ink, and the first printed pattern and the second printed pattern are aligned to form a co-planar indicium; and wherein the indicium further comprises at least a third printed pattern in an at least third ink having a third color, wherein the third printed pattern is complimentary to the first printed pattern and the second printed pattern, and the first printed pattern, the second printed pattern, and the at least third printed pattern are aligned to form the co-planar indicium, wherein the first printed pattern and the second printed pattern encode true information and at least one of the at least third printed pattern encodes false information.