Digital fingerprinting track and trace system
First Claim
1. A method for tracking a physical object comprising the steps of:
- acquiring digital image data of an image of at least a portion of a physical object;
identifying a class of objects to which the physical object belongs;
accessing a stored feature template associated with the identified class of objects, wherein the feature template defines a first authentication region and defines at least one feature located within the first authentication region;
analyzing the image data to form a digital fingerprint of the object, wherein the digital fingerprint is responsive to natural structure of the object at least in that, first, it does not rely upon or require any labels, tags, integrated materials, unique identification characters, codes or other items that were added to the object specifically for the purpose of identification, and second, the digital fingerprint does not include text or symbols recognized from the image data;
and wherein analyzing the image data includes—
selecting a subset of the image data corresponding to the authentication region defined by the feature template;
locating the at least one feature located within the first authentication region;
for each feature, extracting at least one feature vector, the feature vector comprising an array of numeric values based on a portion of the image data corresponding to the feature;
combining the extracted feature vectors to form the digital fingerprint, without including in the fingerprint any text or symbols recognized from the image data and storing the digital fingerprint in a database record.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Methods and systems for tracking a physical object to identify or authenticate it utilizing digital fingerprints which are based on natural features extracted from a digital image of the object. Digital fingerprints do not require or rely on any labels, tags, integrated materials, unique identification characters, codes or other items that may be added to the object specifically for the purpose of identification. Consequently, the disclosed digital fingerprint techniques help to detect or prevent unauthorized alterations of documents, apparel, drugs and pharmaceuticals, etc. Further digital fingerprints can be used to better track and trace a wide variety of objects throughout the distribution chain to demonstrate their provenance and to detect counterfeit objects.
160 Citations
16 Claims
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1. A method for tracking a physical object comprising the steps of:
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acquiring digital image data of an image of at least a portion of a physical object; identifying a class of objects to which the physical object belongs; accessing a stored feature template associated with the identified class of objects, wherein the feature template defines a first authentication region and defines at least one feature located within the first authentication region; analyzing the image data to form a digital fingerprint of the object, wherein the digital fingerprint is responsive to natural structure of the object at least in that, first, it does not rely upon or require any labels, tags, integrated materials, unique identification characters, codes or other items that were added to the object specifically for the purpose of identification, and second, the digital fingerprint does not include text or symbols recognized from the image data; and wherein analyzing the image data includes— selecting a subset of the image data corresponding to the authentication region defined by the feature template; locating the at least one feature located within the first authentication region; for each feature, extracting at least one feature vector, the feature vector comprising an array of numeric values based on a portion of the image data corresponding to the feature; combining the extracted feature vectors to form the digital fingerprint, without including in the fingerprint any text or symbols recognized from the image data and storing the digital fingerprint in a database record. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method comprising:
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identifying a class of objects to which a physical object belongs; accessing a stored feature template associated with the identified class of objects, wherein the feature template defines plural authentication regions; acquiring digital image data of an image of at least a portion of a physical object that includes the plural authentication regions; for each of the plural authentication regions, extracting at least one feature vector, the feature vector comprising an array of numeric values based on a correspond portion of the image data; combining the extracted feature vectors to form a digital fingerprint, without including in the fingerprint any text or symbols recognized from the image data; storing the digital fingerprint in a database; acquiring a second digital fingerprint of a target object that belongs to the identified class of objects; querying the database based on the second digital fingerprint to find a matching fingerprint, wherein a matching record requires that the second digital fingerprint match the stored extracted feature vectors for each and every one of the plural authentication regions defined by the stored feature template within a predetermined tolerance. - View Dependent Claims (11)
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12. A method for authenticating an object comprising:
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identifying a class of objects; accessing a stored feature template associated with the identified class of objects, wherein the feature template defines a first authentication region, a second authentication region, and a position of the second authentication region relative to the first authentication region; acquiring digital image data of an image of at least a portion of an object that includes the first and second authentication regions; selecting a first subset of the image data corresponding to the first authentication region; extracting at least a first feature vector from the first subset to form a first digital fingerprint associated with the first authentication region, the first feature vector comprising an array of numeric values based on the first subset of the image data; selecting a second subset of the image data corresponding to the second authentication region; extracting at least a second feature vector from the second subset to form a second digital fingerprint associated with the second authentication region, the second feature vector comprising an array of numeric values based on the first subset of the image data; determining a position of the second authentication region relative to the first authentication region in the image data and querying a database of stored digital fingerprints to find a record in which— (1) the stored digital fingerprint includes a first stored digital fingerprint that matches the first digital fingerprint associated with the first authentication region within a predetermined threshold difference tolerance; (2) the stored digital fingerprint includes a second stored digital fingerprint that matches the second digital fingerprint associated with the second authentication region within a predetermined threshold difference tolerance; and (3) the defined position of the second authentication region relative to the first authentication region matches the determined position of the second authentication region relative to the first authentication region in the image data within a predetermined threshold difference tolerance; and responsive to finding a record in the database in which at least said three criteria are met, reporting an indication that the object matches an object that corresponds to the database record. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification