Abstract:
PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printer having an integral scanner which obtains a digital signature from a piece of paper or other articles when it is printed.SOLUTION: The integral scanner has a coherent light source which directs a light beam to illuminate the article and a detector arrangement to collect data points from light scattered from many different parts of the article to collect 500 or more data points. The digital signature derived from the data points is stored in a database with an image of what was printed on the article. Then, the authenticity of an article purported to be the originally printed article can be verified by scanning the purported genuine article to obtain its digital signature. The database is then searched, to establish whether there is a match. When a match is found, the image to be stored in the database is displayed with the matched digital signature to a user which allows the user to perform a further visual check on the article. The image is displayed with reference literature data related to the article.
Abstract:
PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printer with an integral scanner which obtains a digital signature from a sheet of paper or other article as it is printed.SOLUTION: The integral scanner has a coherent light source which directs a light beam to illuminate an article, and a detector arrangement for collecting data points from light scattered from many different parts of the article to collect five hundred or more data points. A digital signature derived from the data points is stored in a database with an image of what was printed on the article. At a later time, the authenticity of an article purported to be the originally printed article can be verified by scanning the purported genuine article to obtain its digital signature. The database is then searched to establish whether there is a match. If a match is found, the image stored in the database with the matched digital signature is displayed to the user to allow a further visual check on the article. The image is displayed together with other relevant bibliographic data relevant to the article.