Concealed magnetic ID code and antitheft tag
First Claim
1. A tag for concealing in an object for providing antitheft protection and identification codes comprising:
- an antitheft element, and magnetically unbiased means for providing an identification code.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The invention relates to a special type of magnetic tag that serves both as an identifier of the article to which it is attached and as an antitheft device. The former attribute is especially important should stolen property be recovered. Identification comes about through the use of an array of individual magnetic elements that are closely spaced, preferably along and perpendicular to an amorphous wire or strip. The magnetic elements can take the form of magnetic ink, high coercivity wire, thin foil, or amorphous wire. The array may be personalized (coded) by leaving out elements of the array or driving selected elements to saturation while others remain demagnetized. The elements can also be in the form of a double array to constitute `1`s and `0`s to form a code. Reading of the elements is accomplished with a special reading head consisting or one or more small magnetic circuits coupled to one or more pickup loops. A longer length of soft magnetic wire or thin strip is used to trigger an anti-theft alarm when activated by an external field from a magnetic gate.
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Citations
15 Claims
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1. A tag for concealing in an object for providing antitheft protection and identification codes comprising:
an antitheft element, and magnetically unbiased means for providing an identification code. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A method for protecting an object from theft and for identifying said object comprising the steps of:
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a) concealing an identification tag in said object, said tag comprising an antitheft element in the form of an amorphous wire and magnetically unbiased means for providing an identification code wherein said code comprises a plurality of low remanence soft magnetic elements; b) providing a sensing head wherein said head consists of an excitation coil and a sensing coil; and c) interrogating said tag by moving said head along said tag to thereby induce a magnetic field in said low remanence soft magnetic elements, if present, with the excitation coil while sensing the magnetization of said low remanence soft magnetic elements with the sensing coil.
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9. A system for protecting an object from theft and for identifying said object comprising:
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an antitheft element; magnetically unbiased means for providing an identification code; and means for reading said code. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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Specification