Patent ID: 8615470

Claim:
A method for remote authentication of a product, the method comprising: receiving, at a first network address, a signal from a remote requester, the signal corresponding to a product authentication request and including a code string displayed on an instantiation of a product to be authenticated and an indication of the product; selecting, at the first network address, one of a plurality of possible second network addresses using the received indication of the product; checking the authenticity of the instantiation of the product by determining whether the indicated code string is contained within a stored subset of unique code strings associated with the selected second network address, the stored subset of unique code strings having been selected from a substantially larger set of unique code strings; and transmitting a signal to the remote requester indicating whether or not the instantiation of the product is authentic, wherein a plurality of unique code strings associated with at least two of the plurality of possible second network addresses are the same unique code strings.