Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support – Multiple computer communication using cryptography – Protection at a particular protocol layer
Reexamination Certificate
2001-01-18
2002-10-08
Elisca, Pierre E. (Department: 3621)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support
Multiple computer communication using cryptography
Protection at a particular protocol layer
C705S067000, C705S051000, C713S152000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06463541
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to methods of identifying printed matter, more particularly to fraud prevention or detection, and most specifically to record activated printed matter authentification and fraud prevention using a central trusted authority accessible via the world wide web.
2. General Background
Forgeries in four different broad categories are considered: (a) paper currency; (b) cheques and other financial notes; (c) manufactured goods; (d) works of art. Forgery in the first two groups requires imitation in a printed medium while forgery in the latter two groups requires imitation with appropriate means of manufacture. Paper currency is issued only by governments while authorized financial institutions are licensed in the issuance of cheques and other financial notes which are further associated with a particular private entity and signature(s) in attaining legitimacy. Manufactured goods are contrasted to works of art as being mass produced instead of being made singly which necessitates the use of line production rather than individual creation. Forgery is most commonly associated with either counterfeit currency or fraudulent works of art but is considered properly comprehensive of fake bond notes and ‘knock offs’ of manufactured goods.
The concern with forgery with regard to paper currency is readily discernable in the lengths to which governments extend various printing technologies including use of serial numbers, extremely fine lithography, use of detectable materials, and regulation of the stock from which the currency is made. The success of these methods is generally difficult to ascertain objectively, even by parties authorized to investigate counterfeiting, but the problem is considered persistent, with a long and rich history. Prior to the U.S. Civil War banks issued paper currency and it is estimated that by 1860 one third of all circulated paper currency was counterfeit. As a strategic economic attack upon the British the Pound Sterling was counterfeited on a grand scale in Operation Bernhardt by The Third Reich.
More recently it is conjectured that the volume of counterfeit U.S. $100 bills produced largely by opposed regimes has deterred the issuance of notes of greater value despite an inflation of ten fold since notes of greater denomination were discontinued. One perceives large cash transactions as being held in suspicion and indeed regulations require registration of cash deposits of $10,000 or greater among other measures. The fact that this amount requires one hundred notes of the largest denomination of currently available legal U.S. currency is not unnoticed, nor the observation that this is one but one third of the money required to buy an automobile now for one of comparable quality which required only three notes fifty years ago.
It is further observed that paper currency comprises a decreasingly smaller proportion of other monies, particularly funds held and transferred electronically, that electronically processed cards, charge, credit, and debit along with other means of electronic transfer including automatic teller assisted services, world wide web (WWW) accessible electronic banking, electronic debits from checking and other accounts, have become ordinary and routine in less than twenty years. It is considered publicly plausible that currency of the conventional variety will be wholly replaced by electronic means within another twenty years and that, at the present rate of marginalization, conventional currency will be largely irrelevant by that time unless supported by readily accessible electronic authentification means.
As regards the second category, cheques and other financial notes, forgery is considered a less pervasive problem than obtained with regard to paper currency, largely because the parties involved usually have means of authentication available which are simply considered worth the while in exercising. This is not to say that fraud and forgery of financial notes is not a problem nor that the means of authentification are considered wholly satisfactory but that this area is distinguished over the forgery of currency wherein the identity of the valid issuer is a given. It was mentioned earlier that paper currency in the form of bank notes prior to consolidation under federal auspices experienced enormous problems with forgery and that consolidation clearly operated to deter forgery. The same principle is expected to apply to financial notes wherein benefit might be obtained with a simpler system which would provide relatively quick and easy positive identification of the issuer of the bond, certificate, or other note concerned. A greater impetus to forgery is observed with regard to paper currency as opposed to financial notes because paper currency is circulated between people who do not routinely exercise much if any caution regarding the acceptance of the note as genuine.
With regard to forgeries of manufacture the distinction between mass production and works of art has been proposed as a basis for useful categorization. With regard to the magnitude of the problems involved in these two areas it is suggested that the level of concern with fraudulent manufacture in mass produced product is commensurate with the importance of the patent system. For while patents are intended to protect and thereby promote innovation, the benefit to the patent holder is a monopoly limited in time to the product developed. The trademark system clearly reflects the extent of the damage which would obtain without the ability to identify one company from another with respect to their products and services. Design patents protect only the appearance of a product, and copyright only against verbatim reproduction, but both are considered valuable defenses against ‘knock off’ product which pretends to be of a manufacture it is not.
Works of art are perhaps the most dramatic if most difficult category to assess with respect to the magnitude of the problem posed by forgery. The practice is obviously prevalent as the common epigram ‘buyer beware’ connotes. Aside from forgery outright the question of rightful ownership is considered another vast problem endemic to all areas concerned if more readily recognizable in the areas of mass produced goods and works of art. In cases of establishing rightful ownership the identities of the parties may be peripherally involved but the identity of the object is considered central. One may easily insure a valuable painting by a well known artist or a valuable automobile of which only a few thousand were made and the thief of the object may have a considerable problem in selling the stolen object unless the identify of the same can be obscured. The most frequently stolen cars in the U.S. are among those models with the highest sales figures because these cars can be taken apart in a ‘chop shop’ and sold piecemeal while essentially obliterating the identity of the vehicle. Rather than stealing a painting by a famous artist, for another example, the prospect of imitating the work of the same and affixing a facsimile of that famous artist's signature upon the forgery may become a relatively attractive prospect. These observations are considered to point to the main problem underlying all areas of forgery and fraud: the difficulty in positively identifying the object, i.e. authentification of an object, not the parties involved.
3. Discussion of the Prior Art
In accordance with the emphasis placed upon authentification of an object, as opposed to identification of a person, resulting from the above consideration of the background of the present invention in general terms it is considered that while the latter is often relied upon in attaining the former, art which is only capable of establishing personal identification, without any ability to identify an object, which ability is understood herein by the term ‘authentification’, is considered beyond the scope of the present discussion. It is next considered that as a practical necessity in authentific
Elisca Pierre E.
Gibson Peter
LandOfFree
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