CN1382090A - Method and device for testing integrity of packet especially cigarette packet - Google Patents

Abstract

This invention relates to a method and apparatus for inspecting the typical characteristic patterns and corresponding markings on a packaged cigarette pack. The aim is to use an inspection method that can be easily operated by any consumer. This method is implemented using a reader (7), which reads the coded characteristic pattern (5) on the surface of the packaging and compares it with the cigarette characteristic pattern read by directly contacting the end face of the cigarette (1) when the packaging (4) is opened. In this way, counterfeit products can be revealed by differences or repeated identical matches.

Description

Method and device for checking the integrity of packages, especially cigarette packages

The present invention relates to a method for checking the integrity of a package containing at least one item, especially in the tobacco processing industry, a package containing clearly grouped items, wherein these items are assigned one or more typical characteristics, determined by this or These characteristics generate a code that is applied as marks on the package that are read and compared to the characteristics of the item.

The invention also relates to a device for checking the integrity of packages containing at least one item, and in particular in the tobacco processing industry, packages containing clearly grouped items, wherein these items are assigned one or more typical characteristics, defined by this or these The features form a code which is applied as a mark on the package which is read by a reader operating in response to the package code and compared with typical coded features of the contents of the package detected by the reader.

By means of measures and arrangements of the above-mentioned type, it is possible to guarantee or check the original combination or configuration of the packaging items and packaging or packaging materials in order to ensure the product quality guaranteed by the manufacturer and to reveal misuse and violations of the original product.

The object of the invention is to realize such a check in its entirety using the simplest possible measures.

According to the invention, this task is solved by detecting, after opening the packaging, typical features belonging to these items and comparing them with the markings read on the surface of the packaging.

In the broadest sense, the so-called typical characteristics of an article can be understood as the characteristics of the incidental or subsequent coating or attachment of the inner and outer packaging compositions, which belong to the group consisting of multiple covers or inner or outer packaging. A package composed of layers.

According to a further proposed preferred measure, the detection of the characteristic features belonging to the article on the opening end of the packaging has the advantage that the cover of the packaging which is intended to be used anyway or to remove the cigarettes is used for the checking function.

According to a subsidiary proposal, the characteristic features belonging to the objects are detected by direct contact with the front face of the mouth end of the cigarette, so that a reliable detection of objects with typical characteristics or clearly arranged in groups is achieved.

A relatively reliable and simple test method can be achieved by, according to a refinement, detecting the presence or position of the indicator attached to the mouthpiece end by contacting the mouthpiece end head-on.

Since the items within each package are normally defined by various or individualized typical characteristics of the items, the duplicate packages that are opened are false on the basis of this. According to another proposal, authenticity can be detected directly by outputting a falsification signal when at least two comparison measurements result in a combination of the correct encoding of the packaging code and the content item code.

The device for carrying out the method described at the outset comprises a reading machine with its own power supply, which on the one hand detects packaging markings magnetically, electrically, mechanically, optically or similarly and on the other hand detects markings by direct contact with the object. Detect typical features of these objects.

According to a preferred development, the reading device is designed to respond to the metallic lining or coating by directly contacting the end face of the cigarette mouthpiece, whereby a relatively reliable and simple interaction of the reading device with the measuring object can be achieved. Another configuration for optimizing the usability of the reading machine consists in that it is equipped with an indicator which indicates whether the features of the marking on the packaging and the features of the contents match or deviate.

The advantage achieved by the present invention is that a reader that can be easily operated by every consumer anytime and anywhere, for example in the form of a credit card or a lighter, can be used both on the packaging surface and in normal packaging use opening.

The method of the present invention is used in close cooperation between producers and consumers in the common desire to ensure the authenticity of the products produced and purchased.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail according to the embodiments shown in the drawings. in:

Fig. 1 is a reader placed on the surface of a cigarette package;

Fig. 2 is a reading machine placed on the end of the cigarette on the open front of the cigarette package;

Figure 3 is a general view of the filter making device with an additional device for anti-counterfeiting and shown schematically;

Figure 4 shows an open-ended transport box for transporting stacks of cigarettes of a cigarette packing machine;

Figure 5 is a pointing device for generating or reading coded marks.

According to an embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 , the filter cigarette 1 is provided with unambiguous characteristic features during or after manufacture, for example in the form of a magnetically detectable metallic coating or a printed marking 2 containing metal. . In this way, the marking features applied on the filter part 3, such as on the filter wrapping paper or on the inside or outside of the outer paper connecting the cigarettes and the filter, are occupied in the pile of filter cigarettes 6 packed into the pack 4. At a random arbitrary location, for example as shown in FIG. 1 , these marking features are visibly or invisiblely applied on the outer surface of the package 4 as individual representative features in the form of coded markings for each individual package. This individual coded feature pattern 5 is read and indicated on an indicator 10 by a detection device 7 designed as an easy-to-operate reader in the form of a credit card.

After opening the end face of the pack as shown in FIG. 2 , this or the other detection device 7 directly touches the end face of the cigarette 1 before taking it out and reads the respective characteristic pattern 5 of the stack 6 and compares it with the marking on the pack 4 And the comparison signal is displayed on the indicator 10 . A deviation between the two test signals identifies the abused package and its contents.

In addition, the detection device 7 should be programmed in such a way that when a correctly coded combination of packaging code and content code occurs at least twice, then the detection device recognizes a duplicate packaging, which is displayed on the indicator 10 Counterfeiting is not possible because each individual original packaging has a specific individual characteristic of its contents and its corresponding printed lettering.

Fig. 3 represents a kind of filter tip manufacturing device described in detail in our US-PS 4412505 for example, it comprises the assembly of the first composition preparation device 11 form, and it is used for processing the filter tip thread strip 13 that pulls out with a roller 12, Its method is that it stretches, unclamps and sprays the softening agent in a spraying device 14; The strands 13 are bundled in a feed hopper 17 and the resulting filter rods are wrapped with an incoming wrapping strip 18 according to size 19 and cut into individual filter rods 3 .

In order to set a detectable characteristic marking feature in the filter strip 3 constituting a filter portion or filter segment 3 of the sealed filter cigarette 1, the filter strip 13 between the components 11 and 16 is fed A marking strip 2 drawn from the bobbin 21, for example metallic or of a contrasting colour, can be detected as an embedded foreign body by corresponding detectors on the longitudinal and end sides of the filter cigarette 1 .

During its packaging, the filter cigarettes 1 prepared in this way are placed in a randomly determined position in a packaging machine in relation to the inserted markings, so that in general, the packaging machine shown in Figure 4 contains There is a randomly determined characteristic pattern in the transport box 22 of the pile of cigarettes and for example as described in US-PS 4471866.

This type-unique characteristic pattern for each cigarette stack 6 or for each cigarette pack 4 can be detected, for example, by means of the detection device 7 on the front side of the transport box 22 .

As the detection device 7, for example, a commercial matrix camera can be used, which can be activated in the stationary state of the transport box 22 moving rhythmically by means of the box belt 23, or as in the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5 Shown adopts a kind of CCD line scan camera 26 that objective lens 24 is housed, and it can scan the end face that is positioned at the cigarette stack 6 in the transport box 22 that passes through, for example Sifter and Krishoff (Sch. fter & Krichhoff) company's JR2048 series cameras.

By means of a line scan camera 26 and using a beat sensor 27 that produces a high-frequency synchronized beat, the filter ends in the packaging 4 or in a transport box 22 are scanned step by step, thereby scanning into a graphic in the graphics processing unit 28, which can thus Graphics and through the processing unit 28 to obtain the position of the filter tip and specify the corresponding analysis processing window. As shown in FIG. 4, for example, each processing window is divided into four quadrants 1-4 clockwise, wherein this division can of course be arbitrarily refined.

Thus, the processing unit 28 can assign to a certain quadrant the mark 2 recognized on each filter tip, so that for each item position in the transport box 22 as shown in FIG. The addition of 3, 2, 4, 2, 3 is used as a code to get the number 15; for the middle position, the number 14 is obtained by adding the quadrants 1, 2, 1, 3, 4, 2, 1, and for The lower position, the number 18 is obtained by adding the quadrants 4, 3, 4, 2, 3, 2. Thus, by adding these position numbers 15 , 14 and 18 to form the total signal 47 , the processing unit 28 can, for example, obtain a coded mark representing a characteristic characteristic pattern.

This coding mark is issued on a marking device in the form of a printing device 29, which can be, for example, an inkjet printer or a label laser printer of conventional construction according to the particular packaging material to be marked, such as packaged by the IWK company of Germany Technologies, Inc. or machines manufactured by Domino Laser lne.

When using the detection device 7 as a reader, it is only necessary to replace the image processing unit 28 with a processing unit that is programmed with a conversion and decodes and compares the detected marking features and replaces the printing with a simple indicator. The device 29 is sufficient, wherein the tempo sensor 27 is eliminated.

Claims (8)

1. A method of verifying the integrity of a package containing at least one object, and in particular in the tobacco processing industry, a package containing clearly grouped objects, wherein these objects are provided with one or more typical features, determined by this or These characteristics generate a code, the result of which is applied as markings on the packaging, these markings are read and compared with the characteristics of the objects, characterized in that, after opening the packaging, the typical characteristics belonging to these objects are detected and compared with those on the surface of the packaging Compare the markup you read above. 2. The method as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that characteristic features belonging to the article are detected on the open end face of the packaging. 3. The method as claimed in claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the characteristic features belonging to the object are detected by direct contact with the end face of the mouth end of the cigarette. 4. The method as claimed in claim 3, characterized in that the presence or absence or the position of the indicator provided on the mouthpiece end is detected by contact with the end surface of the mouthpiece end. 5. The method according to any one of claims 1-4, characterized in that, when the test result is obtained as a combination of the correctly coded packaging code and the content code by at least two comparative measurement results, a falsified Signal. 6. A device for checking the integrity of a package containing at least one object, and in particular in the tobacco processing industry, a package containing clearly grouped objects, wherein these objects are assigned one or more typical characteristics, consisting of one or more The characteristic produces a code, the result of which is applied as a mark on the package, said mark being detected by a reader operating in response to the package code and compared with the coded typical characteristics of the contents of the package detected by the reader , is characterized in that a device with its own power supply is provided and detects packaging markings magnetically, electrically, mechanically, optically or the like on the one hand and detects these objects by direct contact with the objects (1) on the other hand (1) Typical features of (5) reading machine. 7. The device according to claim 6, characterized in that the reader (7) is designed to respond to the metal lining or coating (2) by directly contacting the end face of the cigarette (1) mouthpiece end (3). work. 8. The device according to claim 6 or 7, characterized in that the reader (7) is provided with a display (10) indicating whether the characteristics of the packaging marking and the characteristics of the contents are consistent or deviate.

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