From their website: “We combine the flexibility of QR codes with a secure graphic to protect products from unauthorized copying, using a patented process based on naturally-occurring degradation during the printing process.The information loss occurring during printing prevents any copied prints from being authenticated as an original product.”
I guess you would have to look at the patent to find out more.
I think there are a lot of other ways to solve this and I do not think that this patented QR codes is the right one. SSI with verified credentials seem to me much-much better solutions than this.
Also, you cannot prevent counterfeit products what you can do is reducing from one-to-many to one-to-one (as an example Cardano’s New Balance Shoes owner can sold the card for a producer but that producer only can have one counterfeit shoes instead of many), so it would make very hard for the counterfeit producers to make them in some sustainable way.
What I meant by some SSI (Self Sovereign Identity) solution. For example coffee seeds’ (as an example) every packet has its simple QR decoding a DID an identity time/date when manufactured etc. and tracks the supply chain till the end user. So, the buyer can see whether it was manufactured what is the expiry day in which shop it should be and was sold etc so does not matter if you copy this QR, you will know if it is a legit or not.
It is very similar to Cardano’s NB deals, where the end user can sure that product is genuine. And does not matter if you copy the QR as when the seed should be in a small town somewhere in europe but you scan it in some city in new york you woukd recognise, even if the shopper that originally has the prod but when it sold it he/she cannot resell anymore, cos that item is sold. It is like IoI Internet of Identities.
I following SSI years, it is evolving very fast.
Unfortunately, what I see by these announcements, that the general public can see some possible adoption of their well loved coins that could make their lovely coins price goes higher. We are very far from adaption, would say we need at least 5 years to have some realistic outcomes based on these deals. But, luckily this space is evolving and perhaps if not Cardano would be the winner then that is fine, as the target is having much better systems than we had in the past/before.
On your point about how ScanTrust has patented the technology, then this is a blocker to adoption. For as long as they own the patents, it will probably be very expensive (unless others come up with another solution and make it freely available. Smaller enterprises will not be able to afford adoption of ScanTrust’s technology. Let’s hope ScanTrust can come up with an equitable solution to this or make their QR technology open-source.
What is the incentive for consumers to scan product though? it’s neat that the QR will give transit info and product info, but consumer likely already knows about the product since they purchased it. many of us probably remember the “cat scan” that was around 15 or so years ago that you could use to scan any barcode on a product and it would bring you to the companies website.
As someone mentioned, if the QR code already achieves the improbability of a product being a fake, what does having that QR data on a blockchain benefit?
Package Portal, which is part of the Zilliqa blockchain incentivizes users to scan packages received with a crypto token. I’d like to see this Cardono project offer something either new or worthwhile to the consumer who is to be the one scanning.