This is the simple concept at the heart of the Codel Anti-Counterfeiting protocol and much of the logic underpinning our other products.
If you want to keep track of something - give it a unique identifier (UID) and record its progress from point to point within an easily accessible database.
In itself, UIDs are not a particularly novel idea. Manufacturers have used serial numbers for over a century. Nor is the idea of tracking such a reference new. Car and Plant hire firms have been doing it for decades. Couriers have been doing it more recently.
The difference is the scope and scale of our version.
Whereas a Courier will give a UID to a Consignment, Codel provides a UID for EVERY ITEM within the Consignment.
Where a Courier tracks the progress of the consignment from its collection point to its delivery point, the Codel system is designed to track every item in the consignment "from cradle to grave" - or, more accurately, from the factory to the consumer.
On its way it will no doubt form part of several consignments and be handled by several couriers, typically surfacing in a retail outlet and being bought by the consumer. Finally the consumer will take it home and they can choose to "register" to prove to themselves that they have bought a legitimate product and, in doing so, complete the movement records. We can now use that data, if the owner so chooses, to log their ownership of the item for insurance and anti-theft purposes.
This level of tracking has only become possible in the last 10 years. Cheap mass storage has made data volumes an insignificant cost. And the Web has made online communications with central databases fast, feasible and cheap.
How does Tracking individual items help?
In short, each item can only legitimately be in one place at a time. The tracking database knows where each item is (or where it should be). Should a counterfeit item appear on the scene, it will be easily and immediately identified because either its UID is invalid, or because the UID it is using is already known to be somewhere else.
The same logic, in conjunction with very cheap RFIDs, for example, could be used to eliminate shoplifting! The system will "know" when products are taken off the shelf and, as they are taken out of the shop, the system will also know whether or not each individual item has been paid for. It will sound an appropriate alarm if goods are being stolen. We are already talking to other development companies with a view to pilot projects to test the ideas in the field.
