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Two years of product-marking in continuous manufacturing of branded products at Obo Bettermann
Freiburg, September 2013. The branded product-producer for solutions in electric installations and a world market-leader in this segment, Obo Bettermann GmbH & Co. KG located in Menden, Sauerland, Germany, has for two years now integrated the Polysecure Marker in his continuous production of electrical surge and lightning protection devices. By means of handy detectors they can prove or rather authenticate their original products.
Counterfeits do not only damage the image and the reputation of a branded product and the original manufacturer. They can cost lives and endanger the existence of whole companies by unjustified liability charges. Obo Bettermann has recognized this threat well in advance.
The necessity of efficient marking solutions for doubtless prove of originals, complicating reproduction or even avoiding it, has considerably grown. The simple and obvious differentiation is doomed to failure more and more in the light of the external quality of the fakes and their identification marks - they often appear to be two of a kind - optically they are hard to differentiate.
However, the manufacturing quality of the fakes, particularly within the sensible segment of security modules, is that low that they often fail in practice. They do not fit the current security standards taken for granted by the end-consumer. In this case surge and lightning devices could catch fire. And specifically for this event, i.e., after fire and damage of the product, prove must still be possible to fight unjustified liability claims. Based on this experience, Obo Bettermann has knowingly decided for the robust and complete marking-solution offered by Polysecure.
On the one hand marking solutions always comprise the appropriately formulated marker itself and on the other hand these marking-solutions require reproducible measurement-techniques and adequate checking devices for proving the marker and equally for example, the originality of the product quickly, mobile in the field and in built-in condition.
The markers provided by Polysecure consist of ceramic and/or crystalline particles becoming homogeneously incorporated into the substance to be marked. A fractional material sample or a small heap of ashes are sufficient for positive and legal-proof verification.
Obo Bettermann GmbH & Co. KG honors the extensive security standards and, particularly important, the prompt implementation within manufacturing, also with respect to existing production lines. This cooperation has well proven itself in practice. The requested performance characteristics have been fulfilled. Thus, product piracy can be preventively fought and this represents sustainable and legal-proof protection against unjustified warranty and liability claims.
In case of the Obo Bettermann-products the Polysecure marker gets incorporated into the plastic of the casting of the mentioned surge and lightning devices. For this the marker is homogeneously added within the injection moulding process as a masterbatch, just like pigments for example. Polysecure GmbH manufactures both, the marker and the marker-masterbatch.
With respect to Obo Bettermann-products, all three security features of the Polysecure marker can be verified: a characteristical Anti-Stokes-fluorescence, a product code and a structural fingerprint.
Specifically the fluorescence can be measured in the field by means of a small mobile detector and even be made visible for the human eye by a laser-diode.
Original manufacturers can effectively and efficiently fight counterfeits by continuously applying product markers. This has been proven by the example of Obo Bettermann GmbH & Co. KG. That way both, own products and counterfeits, are identified. This option allows for strengthening the unique sales proposition (usp) of the original products in the market as well as the usp's marketing. When this will become standard, counterfeits will lose their foundation and products will become safer.
Pictures
Polysecure product markers offer up to three combinable safety features, detectable even at very low marker-concentrations. The characteristical fluorescence, one of the three security features, can be measured by this detector (Brandproof®-series) within split seconds. Thanks to the marker, the originals can be authenticated (pictures top down).
Tested in our lab: the robustness of the Polysecure Marker Technology and the implications on product properties. Test-production in our own lab and control of product- characteristics. In this case tensile strength and elasticity (pictures top down).
Pictures: Polysecure GmbH
For printing and use „free of charge“.
Please find these and other pictures in our online-press-service under: www.polysecure.eu/newsroom/presse/
Upon request we will be happy to supply you with other material.
About POLYSECURE GmbH – Info box
Creation: 2009
Location: 79108 Freiburg, Engesserstr. 4a
Employees: Ten
Surface: 700 square meters office-, lab- and production space
Customers: Plastics, Electrical, Sanitary, Dental, Automotive, Health, Music Instruments, and others.
Polysecure GmbH was founded in 2009 by Dr. Thomas Baque, Jochen Moesslein and Investors as a Technology company for development, production and commercialization of extensive marker-solutions for original products.
Polysecure is focused on robust and multi-functional material markers, applicable in product authentication (counterfeit protection), rejection of unjustified liability claims, control of productions and formulations, material-sorting within recycling-processes and more.
Core of our technology are unique crystalline and ceramic particles. These carry three security features, detectable even at low marker-concentrations:
First, a characteristical fluorescence, measurable in seconds with our mobile optical detectors. Second, a numerical product code based on the chemical code of the ceramic particles. Third, a random structural fingerprint that in principle is incopiable.
Our markers are inert, biocompatible, temperature-stable up to 2.000°C and tunable in size and density. They can be deployed in almost any material for livelong marking: plastics, ceramics, rubber, papers, paints, coatings, chemicals, liquids, metals, and others.
For more information, please contact our web-page under: www.polysecure.eu
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