Anti-counterfeiting technologies | additives feature
Anti-counterfeiting additives and technologies are becoming more sophisticated to help fi ght product piracy. Jennifer Markarian looks at the latest developments
Plastics provide protection against piracy
Counterfeit products today are not just luxury goods like the designer watch or purse one might buy from a questionable vendor on a city sidewalk. They are, in fact, a bane to consumers and companies in a diverse range of industries including clothing, pharmaceuti- cals, toys, electronics, and even automotive. Counterfeit plastic made news in February 2014
when Aston Martin expanded a recall to over 17,500 cars that it discovered used an accelerator pedal moulded from a counterfeit polyamide instead of the specifi ed DuPont polyamide. Although no accidents or injuries were reported as a result in the Aston Martin case, counterfeit materials do have the potential to cause injury to consumers or, at the least, injure a brand’s reputation and result in increased warranty claims.
Proactive measures Companies today are more carefully evaluating the cost of counterfeiting, and management is shifting from reacting to problems to proactively preventing counter- feiting. “Businesses are getting smarter about protect- ing their brand,” comments Sarah Skidmore, marketing manager at Plastics Color Corp (PCC). She noted at a recent conference that attitudes are changing: “It is no longer enough for brand-owners to acknowledge that counterfeiting takes place, but they must take the next steps to audit their suppliers and have a plan for corporate compliance.” Additive and masterbatch suppliers are at the
forefront of anti-counterfeiting efforts in the plastics industry, with a wide range of solutions including both overt and covert technologies. Overt or visible technolo-
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gies include holograms, watermarks, and laser-etched graphics that cannot be removed and are diffi cult to alter. Additives play a role here because some polymer types require additives to allow laser etching to take place. Covert or hidden technologies include a variety of additives compounded into a polymer and revealed under a certain light or through analytical tests. Often, multiple technologies are used to thwart counterfeiters. The choice of anti-counterfeiting additive depends on
factors such as the value of the product being counter- feited, cost of the solution, and where the detection is to take place, noted Stuart Swain, director of technology for Chroma Corporation in a presentation at AMI’s Compounding World Forum held in Philadelphia in December 2013. Checking for authenticity of a material can be done at various stages of a product’s life. For example, a company investigating products returned under a warranty claim can check whether a material is
November 2014 | COMPOUNDING WORLD 43
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