Glossary of Terms

Anti-Counterfeit: References products and services designed in order to aid in the fight against the counterfeiting of brands, documents, and products.

Authentication: A process or technology that when applies can validate that a product is genuine.

Barcode: Is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows data about the object to which it is attached.

Black Market: A market of goods or services, which operates outside the formal guidelines of markets, supported by established state power. Black markets are associated with counterfeit goods.

Brand: Name, term, design, or symbol that represents a seller's good or service as distinct from those of all other sellers.

Brand Protection: The process of taking numerous security measures to ensure the authenticity of the products and services offered by a brand name.

Cargo Theft: The illegal capture of a company's product through the manufacturing process.

Counterfeiting: The illegal imitation of a product or service.

Covert: The term used to describe an object, symbol or marker that is not openly displayed.

Digital Information Security: The service that protects information stored onto electronic devices from counterfeiting.

Diversion: The creation of alternation direction – away from a course or purpose.

Financial Instruments: Any contract that gives rise to a financial asset of one entity and a financial liability or equity instrument of another entity.

Folding Cartons: A folding carton is made of paperboard, and is cut, folded, and printed for transport to manufacturers. The cartons are shipped flat to a manufacturer, which fold the carton into its final shape as a container for a product. The classic example of such a carton is a cereal or toothpaste box.

Forensic: Relating to, or dealing with, the application of scientific knowledge to legal/investigation problems.

Forensic Marking: A liquid solution, typically colorless, that could be applied to valuable items as a way to deter criminals and counterfeiting.

Forgery: The alteration of an existing document, or the creation of a fake document or signature without authorization.

Fraud: An intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual.

Grey Market: An unofficial market where new issues of share are bought and sold before they become officially available for trade.

ID Cards: An "Identify Document" – or any documents, which may be used to verify aspects of a person’s personal, identity.

Investigation Services: A service that generates an analyst's investigation of a company.

IT Monitoring: Information monitoring both.

Mass Serialization: is the process that manufacturers go through to assign and mark each of their products with a Unique identifier such as an Electronic Product Code (EPC). The marking or "tagging" of products is usually done in the manufacturing process through the use of various combinations of human readable and/or machine readable technologies such as DataMatrix barcodes or RFID. Mass Serialization is done to enable many valuable traceability use cases mentioned in Track & Trace.

Microscopic Graphic Elements: An image, logo, or text that when applied, is only legible if extremely magnified.

Nano Particles: Microscopic embedded particles.

Organized Retail Theft: Professional shoplifting, cargo theft, and other organized crime occurring in retail environments.

Overt: The term used to describe an object, symbol or marker that is open to view, not concealed or secret.

Product Lifecycle: The phases of a product’s life, from creation to it’s eventual extinction or adaptation.

QR code: (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) that consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be made up of any kind of data (e.g. binary, alphanumeric, or Kanji symbols). QR codes are effective due to their fast readability and comparatively large storage capacity

RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification): is a technology that uses radio waves to transfer data from an electronic tag, called RFID tag or label, attached to an object, through a reader for the purpose of identifying and tracking the object. Some RFID tags can be read from several meters away and beyond the line of sight of the reader.

Smart Card: Any pocket-sized card with embedded integrated circuits – containing volatile memory. These cards also provide strong security authentication for single sign-on (SSO) within large organizations. 


Synthetic DNA: Human manufactured DNA particles

Taggants: Are micro-particles embedded into ink, varnish or paper that are detectable by using a forensic authentication device.

UHF: Ultra High Frequency

Variable Coding: A code, which can be individualized for each item that it is placed on. This provides a unique product identifier for each item in a batch.

Variable Data: Data measured on a continuous scale such as person’s age in years.