New technology can identify fakes

Luxury brands affected by Asia’s burgeoning multi-billion dollar piracy trade will soon have a new weapon.

NEC has revealed new technology that can distinguish even the most sophisticated counterfeit products.

The technology can read microscopic patterns on anything from luxury handbags to mechanical component.

And it can track the origin of mass-produced items like clothing by examining what it describes as “object fingerprints” – three-dimensional patterns or irregularities found on the surface of items.

Tohihiko Hiroaki, assistant GM at NEC’s Information and Media Processing Laboratories, says a customers officer at an airport terminal could take a photo of a specific part of an item using a smartphone, which can then be matched with a database supplied by the manufacturer.

NEC claims its technology can tell the time and place a product was manufactured.

“You can identify offspring that come from the same parental mould,” said Hiroaki. “If you take a close look, you can tell one child from another.”

Further testing lies ahead before the technology is released commercially next year.