Time dependent color-changing security indicator

Details Time dependent color-changing security indicator Time dependent color-changing security indicator

2001-08-21

2004-06-22

Fridie, Jr., Willmon (Department: 3722)

Printed matter

Having revealable concealed information, fraud preventer or...

C283S114000, C283S067000, C283S070000, C283S075000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06752430

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
An object of this invention is to convert commercially available plastic ID cards and/or electronically printed documents into time dependant, self-expiring badges or documents that display a visual indicia, e.g., change of color, appearance of a word, e.g., VOID after a specified or predetermined period of time.
2. Prior Art
Electronically printed security cards and security documents generally have a specified or predetermined period of time for valid use. Typically, this period of time is specified by printing an expiration date on the document. In order to make the expiration of any of these documents or cards more visible for security personnel, particularly from a distance, it has been found that a change of color after the expiration period works best because people sense a color change more readily and faster than reading printed dates and other printed matter.
Generally, plastic photo ID badges and other electronically printed security documents are issued to employees and other individuals in order to provide a uniform security system for access to facilities and authorization to be places at certain times. Prior to the development of the dye sublimation printer for PVC cards, all photo ID badges were constructed with, for example, Polaroid type photos laminated onto a polyester pouch or card. Since about 1995, this original “cut and paste” photo ID badge system has been replaced by electronic imaging systems that employ dye sublimation printers on blank PVC (polyvinyl chloride) credit card size cards.
In general, the vast majority of PVC ID cards are made secure by merely printing a specific design and color on the card itself. A blank, typically a white PVC card, is printed with a specific design along with the image of the individual. If a company wants to make their badges more secure, they attach an overlaminate onto this card so that the overlaminate contains some visual device such as optically variable printing or a hologram to confirm that the card was issued by them and is not a duplicate (counterfeit) printed on another printer.
It is a well know fact that security personnel and employees have a difficult time verifying that particular ID badges are authentic. Generally, people do not read the specific data on a card such as the date, and they do not compare the image of the person on the card with the person actually holding the card. People generally only review the overall impression and colors of the card in the few seconds (or less) that they have to review it. This problem exists with most Visitor and temporary ID badges. Because each badge looks identical to all other cards except for the date, people simply assume that the badge is valid if it has the general appearance of the normal visitor badge. Over the years, this has been demonstrated to provide a useless ID security control system because once a person is in possession of the visitor badge; they can, and do, frequently reuse it.
Beginning about 1980, applicant's assignee, Temtec, Inc. devised a new concept in visitor and temporary badge control. Examples of these products and the technology used by these products are represented by the Haas patents discussed herein. These products have become universally accepted as the means for controlling and improving visitor security and temporary badges. These products are generally self-expiring visitor badges, which simply change color, and show an “expired” indicia after the predetermined authorization time has lapsed. This means that “valid” visitor badges only exist for the time period they are valid and that after that time interval, they self-expire by changing color. Thus, security personnel and employees can quickly confirm that a person possessing a visitor badge is authorized for entry into the facility. Thus, this “look-alike” phenomenon of temporary security badges that had plagued security managers for years has been eliminated by the development of the color-changing temporary ID badge.
This same “look-alike” phenomena exists with the new, commercially available PVC photo ID cards and has developed into a security weakness. Since the PVC cards for visitors and temporary employees all look the same, one can easily fail to notice that they have expired or are counterfeit. This invention converts commercially available plastic (PVC) ID cards and/or electronically printed documents into time dependant, self-expiring badges or documents that display a visual indicia, e.g., change of color, appearance of a word, e.g., VOID after a specified or predetermined period of time. Such an invention provides an inexpensive means of enhancing security.
The following US Patents may be relevant to this invention:
RE U.S. Pat. No. 36,519 to Lum et al. describes a dye-donor element for resistive head thermal dye transfer comprising a support having thereon a dye layer comprising an image dye in a polymeric binder, and wherein the dye layer also contains a polymeric plasticizer.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,541,830 to Hotta et al describes a dye transfer sheet for heat-sensitive recording which comprises a substrate, and a thin layer of at least one sublimable dye formed on one side of the substrate. The dye layer comprises non-sublimable particles uniformly distributed throughout the layer to form irregularities on the layer surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,271 to Broenstein et al. describes a thermal printer apparatus which includes a print head having a plurality of groups of thermal pixels. The thermal pixels in each group are simultaneously addressed in parallel. Each group is addressed a plurality of times. The apparatus selectively energizes the thermal pixels of each group when they are addressed until each thermal pixel is at a temperature where it can supply energy to a carrier member which delivered an amount of dye to a receiver which corresponds to a desired dye density in an image pixel.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,916,112 to Henzel et al. describes a dye-donor element for thermal dye transfer comprising a support having on one side thereof a dye layer and on the other side a slipping layer comprising an organic lubricating material in a binder, the lubricating material comprising a nonhomogeneous layer of a particulate ester wax comprising an ester of a fatty acid and a monohydric alcohol, the ester wax having a particle size of from about 0.5 &mgr;m to about 20 &mgr;m.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,927,803 to Balry et al. describes a dye-receiving element for thermal dye transfer comprising a support having thereon a polymeric dye image-receiving layer containing a polycarbonate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,023,228 to Henzel describes a dye-donor element for thermal dye transfer comprising a poly(ethylene terephthalate) support having thereon, in order, a subbing layer and a dye layer comprising a dye dispersed in a cellulosic binder, and wherein said subbing layer comprises a copolymer of vinyl alcohol and an alkyl ester of vinyl alcohol, such as vinyl acetate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,332,713 and 5,387,573 to Oldfield et al. describes a dye-donor element for thermal dye transfer comprising a support having thereon at least one dye layer area comprising an image dye in a binder and another area comprising a transferable protection layer, the transferable protection layer area being approximately equal in size to the dye layer area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,688,738 to Lu describes a security card comprising a backing, a cover film, and a security image, the security image being located between the backing and the cover film, the backing and the cover film being laminated together without an intermediate adhesive layer. The backing comprises an amorphous copolyester or polyvinyl chloride, and the cover film comprises the other of polyvinyl chloride or an amorphous copolyester.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,723,405 to Hastreiter. Jr. et al. describes a dye-receiver element comprising a support having thereon a dye-receiving layer containing a thermally-transferred dye image, the dye-receiving layer being laminated to a transparent protective sheet by means of a phenoxy r

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