A METHOD OF PROVIDING BRAND ASSURANCE AND ITEM AUTHENTICITY USING PAYMENT CARD INDUSTRY INFRASTRUCTURE

摘要

A method of providing proof of authenticity for commodity items (e.g. consumergoods) tothe potential buyer of the item directly to the buyer's portable device isdisclosed. Theme-thod utilizes (i) affixing or embedding a token that provides a unique itemauthenticationcode that is readable by the buyer's portable device (the code may be on acontactlessmi-croprocessor chip), (ii) including this identification code as a part ofconventional paymentcard transaction messages, (iii) providing the potential buyer's portabledevice with datapertaining the lifecycle status and description of the item, (iv) displayingthe outcome ofthe card-based payment transaction at the buyer's portable device, and (v)post-ing/recording the sale of said item at the brandname lifecycle managementhost. Analter-native method is disclosed that require neither change to paymentassociation messageformats nor modifications to any point of sale hardware or software.