Patent ID: 7996173

Claim:
A method of operating a host authentication system to provide responses to object authentication requests, the method comprising: storing in at least one non-transitory processor-readable storage medium a set of object authentication reference data representing responses of various reference objects to at least one sequence of illumination with a plurality of bands of electromagnetic energy; receiving by the host authentication system an object authentication request from a remote test device, the object authentication request including test data representing at least one response of an object being authenticated to at least a first sequence of illumination with the plurality of bands of electromagnetic energy; comparing by at least one processor of the host authentication system the test data to the object authentication reference data; determining by the at least one processor of the host authentication system an authentication result for the object being authenticated based on the comparing of the test data to the object authentication reference data; and tracking by at least one processor of a billing system usage of the host authentication system by a billing entity financially associated with the remote test device.