Patent Application
20060050136
The subject invention relates to a method and system for the printing of documents which are difficult to reproduce without detection. More particularly, it relates to printing of documents which have value using a thermal computer printer.
Documents which represent proof of payment (e.g., mail pieces which have been franked with a postal indicium, tax stamps) or which have a monetary value (e.g., tickets) must be secure, i.e., difficult to counterfeit. Printing such documents with a conventional computer printer is difficult, because methods for precise duplication are widely available using off-the-shelf scanning and printing technologies.
One method for solving this problem is to create complex patterns or images on the document, or to embed information in an image or pattern on a document in a manner such that the images or patterns cannot be reproduced with sufficient precision using widely available technologies. These methods, however, require that very high quality printing technology be used to produce the original documents.
Another method is to use a unique stock as the substrate upon which a document is printed. The unique features of the stock help serve to authenticate the original document; the best-known example being the unique stocks used to print currency. Such unique stocks, however, are expensive and require careful management.
While methods such as these have proven useful, their expense become hard to justify when the inherent value or the number of documents is small. For example, postage metering systems, which are well known systems for franking mail pieces as proof of payment of postage, are frequently used by small mailers who mail from a few to a few tens of mail pieces a day, which will not readily support the expense of high quality printing technologies or unique, controlled stock. Thus, it is desirable to use substantially conventional computer printing technologies for postage meters and similar applications. Yet at the same time cumulative postage, particularly for high volume mailers who may mail thousands of mail pieces daily, provides a significant inducement to fraud. Furthermore, while small mailers do not often mail a large number of mail pieces, in certain cases the total postage associated with those mail pieces may be significant enough (e.g., if all the pieces require special handling, e.g. Express Mails) to induce the small mailer to commit fraud.
Print stock 20 (shown in cross-section) includes a polymer top coating 22, thermal ink layer 24 and substrate 28. In operation conventional mechanisms (not shown) move print head 16 and stock 20 so that print head 16 moves through a predetermined raster pattern with respect to stock 20.
Many recently developed postage meter systems are based on conventional microprocessor based computers (e.g., “PCs”) and use conventional computer printers to print postal indicia. Thus, controller 14 and print head 16 typically will comprise, or be substantially similar to, an off-the-shelf computer thermal printer. Thus, as discussed above, readily available scanning technology and off-the-shelf printers easily can be used to produce fraudulent duplicate postal indicia, or other documents of value whose production is controlled. While in principle it is possible to detect the use of duplicates of unique documents such as postal indicia, in practice this has proven difficult.
Thus it is an object of the subject invention to provide a method and system for printing secure documents using substantially off-the-shelf computer printing technology.
The above object is achieved and the disadvantages of the prior art are overcome in accordance with the subject invention by a method and system where a contact thermal printing system includes: a) thermal print head having at least one heater element; and b) a thermal printer controller. The printer controller is programmed to: 1) create a predetermined pattern of relative movement between said print head and said thermal print medium while the print head is in contact with a top coating of a thermal print medium; 2) overdrive the heater element during predetermined parts of the pattern to a temperature sufficient to soften or melt the top coating, thereby forming a pattern of striations in the top coating; and 3) control the heater element to print at least part of an image on the medium.
In accordance with one aspect of the subject invention, the contact surface of the print head has a specific pattern of features for forming the striations, whereby a pattern of striations formed can encode information both in the direction of the motion of the print head and transversely to the direction of motion.
In accordance with another aspect of the subject invention the pattern of striations forms a bar code.
In accordance with another aspect of the subject invention the system includes a second print head, and the printed image is printed by the second thermal print head.
In accordance with still another aspect of the subject invention the image is a postal indicium.
In accordance with still another aspect of the subject invention, the system further includes an accounting system for accounting for postage represented by the postal indicium.
In accordance with still yet another aspect of the subject invention, the printer controller operates in a second mode to print the image without forming the striations.
Other objects and advantages of the subject invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the detailed description set forth below and the attached drawings.
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In a preferred embodiment of the subject invention, printer controller 14M includes input 42 from controller 30 to driver 40. When activated, input 42 controls driver 40 to overdrive selected ones of print head elements 16H and cause striations S to be embossed into layer 22.
Typical temperatures to develop regions PE in ink layer 24 are 110C to 120C and vary with the selected media. The temperature for embossing striations S range from 180C to 250C, varying with the selected media, to a high end limited only by the threshold of breakdown of the thermal print head circuit material. Preferred methods of overdriving print head elements 16H are:
In another embodiment of the subject invention, second controller 46 controlling second print head 48 is provided in place of input 42, and is designed to operate at a temperature which will emboss striations S.
In other embodiments of the subject invention, assurance of appropriate accounting can be provided by means such as: encryption of data; enclosure of meter 10M in a secure, tamper-proof housing; or the use of connectors which are uniquely, mechanically keyed to provide signal paths between accounting system 12 and controller 14M.
At step 56, controller 30 determines if the appropriate response has been received. If not, or if in another embodiment of the subject invention data is received through auxiliary input 49, at step 60 controller 30 inputs and prints data in a conventional manner; thus allowing controller 14M and print head 16 to function in a second mode as a conventional computer printer for purposes such as printing of addresses on mail pieces. Otherwise, if the challenge/response protocol is satisfied, at step 62 controller 30 inputs postal data, including a postage amount which determines variable portions of a postal indicium to be printed. Then at step 64, controller 30 assembles bit map representations of various graphical elements of indicia, e.g., logos and alphanumeric characters, stored in bit map store 36 to form a bit map of the indicium to be printed and stores this in working memory 38. Then at step 66, controller 30 maps the elements of the printed image which are to be embossed with striations S. In embodiments of the subject invention where striations S are embossed using second print head 48, this mapping is offset to compensate for the offset of print head 48 from print head 16.
Because elements are substantially overheated to emboss striations, it is believed that the area printed beneath such striations will “bloom”, i.e., expand to overlap areas beneath other elements. Therefore, striations S are preferably embossed over a fully printed (i.e., solid black) portion of the indicium. Typically this area will be incorporated into the indicium specifically for embossing striations S, but can be a portion of the indicium which is normally printed in any case.
In one embodiment of the subject invention, striations S form any convenient pattern which can then be detected by visual inspection to provide an indication that the indicium is an original document and not a duplicate. In other preferred embodiments, striations S encode forensic information such as a meter serial number, postage amount, etc., preferably in the form of a bar code read in the print direction, which can be used to further assure the authenticity of the indicium.
Then at step 68, controller 30 starts to print the indicium. At step 70, it determines from the bit map generated at step 64 if the next image element is to be printed. If not, at step 72 it determines if there are more image elements, and, if there are, returns to step 70. If the current image element is to be printed, then at step 74, controller 30 determines if it is to be embossed with striations S.
If the element is not to be embossed, then at step 78, heater element 16H is energized, and the current image element is printed. Otherwise, at step 80 heater element 16H is overdriven, and the current image element is embossed and printed. In either case controller 30 then goes to step 72 to determine if there are more elements, and, if not, exits.
Other functions of thermal printer controller, which are well known to those skilled in the art, have not been described in detail here to simplify the description. Printer controller 14M synchronizes printing with the movements of stock 20 and print head 16 (and 48, if used) by conventional transport mechanisms (not shown) to generate the printed image. Also controller 14 M has been described as operating on one image element at a time, i.e., as if print head 16 had only a single heater element. In the more typical case, as shown above, where print head 16 has multiple heater elements, controller 30 will operate in a conventional manner to make the determination for each image element corresponding to each heater element and then control each of heater elements 16H-1 through 16H-n to print the image elements concurrently.
In the above described embodiment embossed striations S are formed on the same scale as the image elements and correspond to printed image elements. This is preferred since embossing striations S causes the underlying portion of ink layer 24 to be developed. However, in other embodiments, where striations S are embossed in a portion of the indicium separate from the printed image, striations S can be formed to any convenient scale.
It should be noted that contact thermal printing is well known, and it is believe to be likely that striations, as described above, may have been observed as a result of accidental malfunctions of such printers; however it is not believed that such striations, if in fact observed, were ever considered as anything other than defects or imperfections.
The embodiments described above and illustrated in the attached drawings have been given by way of example and illustration only. From the teachings of the present application, those skilled in the art will readily recognize numerous other embodiments in accordance with the subject invention. Particularly, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the method and system of the present invention can be applied of printing of other controlled documents of value such as tax stamps and tickets. Accordingly, limitations on the subject invention are to be found only in the claims set forth below.
