AVANTE to License RFID Technology for Drug Pedigree Tracking and Counterfeit Prevention.

PRINCETON, N.J. -- AVANTE is proud to announce the allowance of an important U.S. patent (10/171015, "Smart tag data encoding method") on using RFID for counterfeit prevention.

AVANTE developed the solution for using RFID technology to minimize medication errors and drug counterfeiting back in 2000. "In the prevention of counterfeit drugs and products, the existing RFID technology based on ISO 15693 or 18000 and EPC standards are not adequate in many different aspects," said Dr. Kevin Chung, CEO of AVANTE. "The Current EPC standard lacks a factory hard-coded ID tag to prevent duplication fraud. The ISO standards provide for the hard coded ID tag but lack means to authenticate on-tag data and must rely on direct access to database-of-origination for authentication."

At the point-of-care or wherever there is a lack of real-time network accessibility, the authentication is not possible. AVANTE devised a 'relational-check-code' similar to MD5 data binding coding scheme to protect the original data written to the RFID tag. More importantly for the pedigree tracking application, it may be advantageous to write the date-time and tracing ID of the individual organization that handles the drugs in the distribution chain. While the CRC code adopted by EPC helps ensure correct reading of the encoded data, it provides no protection against counterfeiting through simple duplication. The AVANTE like 'relational-check-code' fills in the deficiency.

AVANTE patented the first RFID technology for tracking attendees in event management with innovative antennae and manufacturing methods to make RFID tags reliable. The company was recently issued US patent 6,883,710 on "Article Tracking System and Method" involving the gathering of RFID tag data in different tracking stations over a wide area. The data shared between stations over the Internet and other communication means forms the basis of electronic pedigree and true end-to-end visibility of the supply chain in real-time as envisioned in the EPC. While end-to-end visibility helps to protect against counterfeiting, it requires the availability of Internet and supply chain database management. This patented on-tag relational-check-code enables the authentication without the network availability.

ABOUT AVANTE

AVANTE is a Princeton NJ company (www.avantetech.com) and is looking to partner and license the more than 20 patented and patent-pending RFID technologies.