Patent ID: 7913093

Claim:
A method for providing access to information on an article to which a tag is coupled, said method comprising: reading, by a local server, the tag, wherein the tag comprises at least one virtual identifier (ID), wherein the at least one virtual ID comprises an encryption of at least one bit string, wherein the at least one bit string includes an article ID that identifies the article, wherein the article ID includes a manufacturer ID pertaining to the article, and wherein the local server, an Object Naming Service (ONS) server, an ONS proxy server, and a Physical Markup Language (PML) server are communicatively coupled to each other via a network; after said reading the at least one virtual ID, sending, by the local server to the ONS proxy server, an ONS service request that includes the at least one virtual ID and requests a network address of the PML server, wherein the ONS proxy server is configured to determine the article ID by decrypting the at least one virtual ID, to extract the manufacturer ID from the article ID, and to transmit the manufacturer ID to the ONS server, and wherein the ONS server is configured to determine the network address of the PML server based on the manufacturer ID; after said sending the ONS service request, receiving, by the local server from the ONS server, the network address of the PML server; sending, by the local server to the PML server at the network address of the PML server received from the ONS server, a PML information request that includes the virtual ID and requests article information pertaining to the article, wherein the PML server is configured to determine the article ID by decrypting the at least one virtual ID, to identify the article information based on the article ID, to retrieve the identified article information from a database, and to transmit the retrieved article information to the local server; and after said sending the PML information request, receiving, by the local server from the PML server, the article information, wherein the at least one bit string includes at least one random number distributed within the article ID.