| Taiwan: three medals for innovation for PWPW | |
| (21-10-2015) |
NIR and Safel – these are the names of innovative security features patented by PWPW that gained recognition during the International Invention Show and Technomart 2015 in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Thanks to the technologies developed in Polish Security Printing Work’s laboratories, plastic documents can be even more secure.
The Taiwan expo is one of the biggest technological events of this type organised in south-eastern Asia. Exhibitors from all over the world present their inventions and technologies here. The innovations presented at the expo take part in a contest during which an international jury judges the solutions proposed, and the most innovative ideas are awarded prizes in 27 categories. This year, Taipei saw more than 1500 inventions from 17 countries. In addition to the representatives of Taiwan, there were also exhibitors present from, among other countries, USA, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Turkey, Croatia, Czech Republic, or Italy.
Polish Security Printing Works received three awards in the contest. The document security feature called NIR was awarded the Gold Medal of the INST Expo, and the Safel security feature was awarded the Bronze Medal of the INST Expo and the Special Prize of the International Intellectual Property Network Forum.
NIR is a security feature that is invisible to the naked eye that can be used in plastic documents, such as driving licence or personal ID. Thanks to a special ink that is only visible if infrared light, the personalised elements, such as photographs, dates, names or barcodes, can be introduced as early as the document production stage. Elements created by using this technology are invisible to the naked eye, but can be read by machines that verify documents’ authenticity. More importantly, using the NIR ink makes it possible for card documents to contain personalised elements even at the production stage.
Safel is the latest security feature developed by PWPW, representing the co-called first level of security, which means that it is a feature whose purpose is to facilitate verification of the document by each user. In simple terms, Safel consists of a system of small, transparent areas on which a combination of various security features and personalised data can be applied, which contributes to increasing the document’s security. The main advantages of this technology include the ease of combination with any art design of the document as well as simple verification. At the same time it is difficult to forge, because each attempt at manipulation leaves visible traces on both sides of the document.