Patent ID: 8783194

Claim:
A storage system comprising a plurality of marking apparatuses for marking an item, wherein each marking apparatus comprises: means to receive the item; a nucleic acid marker; means to release a visibly staining marking fluid; and a distribution mechanism coupled to the nucleic acid marker and the means to release the visibly staining marking fluid, the means to release the visibly staining marking fluid being activatable to release the visibly staining marking fluid such that the distribution mechanism disperses a mixture of the nucleic acid marker and the visibly staining marking fluid onto the item, wherein each nucleic acid marker has a variable region of at least twelve nucleotides in length flanked by a first generic region and a second generic region, the first and second generic regions being the same in each nucleic acid marker of each marking apparatus and the variable region being different in the nucleic acid marker of each marking apparatus, the variable region of each nucleic acid marker containing no consecutively repeated nucleotides.