ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Xerox Corporation announced a new technology last week makes it makes it much easier to separate legitimate and copied documents.

Digital printers, scanners and software have made it easy in recent years to make nearly flawless copies of official documents.

Scientists at the Xerox research center in Webster, N.Y. have discovered a technology that uses an ordinary xerographic printer to insert hologram-like images into documents. Glossmark™, the patent-pending technology can aid people in identifying authentic documents. Xerox says Glossmark may also be used for artistic printing applications, such as special effects on greeting cards.

It was serendipity – and – proximity – that led to the discovery. Uneven glossy patches, called “differential gloss,” are typically considered a defect on a print. Chu-leng HLiu, who works at Xerox’s Wilson Center for Research and Technology, was struggling with the problem of overcoming differential gloss. He discussed it with his wife, Beilei Xu, and her co-worker, Shen-ge Wang. They both worked in an adjacent laboratory, which studies ways to improve the quality of digital printing systems.

Suddenly the trio realized the problem could be an opportunity. Could they make differential gloss appear on purpose – and embed images in documents? Experimenting with the concept, they development software and a special combination of halftones, toner, paper and fusing that would distribute different levels of gloss on the page. The result looked almost like a hologram, but could be produced on an office or high-end production printer.

“Improved printing technologies have made it much easier to counterfeit documents,” said Shen-ge Wang, a principal scientist in the Xerox laboratories. “Glossmark prints offer a promising deterrent. Because the differential gloss cannot be reproduced in a second-generation copy, it is a secure technology. It could be used to put authenticating marks on high-value items, like tickets, and on ID cards and other valuable documents. But it can also produce printed materials that are amusing and fun.”

Xerox scientists are developing the Glossmark technology to work on a range of printing devices and with a variety of media, as well as creating associated applications to design and print Glossmark images. Xerox is commercializing this technology for use in its products and working with business partners to develop specific market applications. Glossmark printing technology is available for licensing.

Document and information security is an active area of research at Xerox. Long an expert in anti-counterfeiting and related techniques, the company continues to investigate an array of “hidden imagery” technology to enable today’s documents to communicate in more sophisticated ways or offer new levels of security.

Source: Printing Impressions