Grant: Engage Grants Program

There is a need to protect original documents in order to distinguish them from forgeries or fraudulent duplications. For example, it is illegal to photocopy prescriptions provided by doctors and present them as original documents to pharmacists. A variety of techniques are currently employed to produce original papers that cannot be photocopied or scanned without alteration. Rx Security uses void pantographs which remain one of the most efficient methods and least expensive technologies. Recent developments in photocopying and scanning technologies have made void pantographs less and less effective. This is because the imaging system of the photocopier is not behaving as a ""low-pass filter"" anymore. Thus the word ""void"", ""copy"" or ""invalid"" does not appear anymore in the photocopy or scanned version of the document as required by the anti-counterfeiting standards which govern the clients' marketplace. RX Security has approached the Université de Moncton to provide a research based solution to the problem of increasingly sophisticated photocopiers and scanners as it relates to their product line and anti-forgery techniques. The research challenges are as follows: 1) Recently the optical performance of the photocopiers and scanners became almost as good as the performance of the system of the eye and sometimes even better. We should research a solution that challenge this high performance of today's photocopiers and scanners, however the verification should be doable by the eye or a commonly used technology (telephones for example). 2) The solution should be fluidly and seamlessly implementatble by the company using it's current production capacities and equipment. As well, departures into new and alternative anti-duplication technologies would imply more direct competition with well-established competitors. 3) Since the photocopiers and scanners became optically high performing (less filtering), the solution could integrate high performing components, and therefore it is expected to introduce more expenses. However, the solution should not be expensive. 4) The current production standards (color of the front side, font, graphical inclusions, etc) must be respected.