It has joined forces with the US label maker Acucote for self-adhesive label printing stock to be aimed at the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, clothing, food and drink industries.

Traceless, shown at Drupa 2004, was the "ultimate brand authentication", said Kevin Harrell, Creo's director of global business development for security and authentication.

"Governments can use the system to uniquely identify individual postage stamps, trace cash to reveal money laundering and track terror financing," he said.

The marking and sensing system created unique and invisible identification codes, much like a "fingerprint per item", said Harrell.
Traceless can be detected in everything from labels, pulp, inks and toners to paints and building materials, using taggants, software and electronic sensing gear.

Acucote executive vice president Lynn Crutchfield said brand owners could "regain control". Product counterfeiting costs them nearly 250bn a year and the system produces a specific number of authentic labels by trusted labellers.

Creo's director of business development Eddy Houba said since last year's launch five firms were using Traceless, including XINK Laboratories. The firm has done a deal with Creo to produce Traceless tagged inks for flexo printing radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. These tags will be compatible with Wal-Mart's RFID plans and were recently recommended by the US Food
& Drug Administration (FDA) for pharmaceutical counterfeit protection.

Houba compared Traceless with DNA testing. "You could say DNA is more secure, but analysis is costly and slow. You can detect Traceless in one second using a hand-held reader."

Story by Jez Abbott