Brand protection and product authentication

Is it genuine, proving that a product is not a fake

You buy an expensive pair of sneakers on a resale app, from a stranger. How do you know they are not fake? The same question comes up with a strip of medicine, a spare part for a car, or a branded shampoo bought from a small shop. A fake copy of a branded product is called a counterfeit. Counterfeits cost brands money, and they can put buyers in danger.

Proving that a product is real is called authentication. It can be done in several ways:

a mark in the packaging that cannot be copied
a microscope image of the leather or the fabric
a code on the pack, checked at the shop or on the buyer's phone

Three ways to prove a product is real: a mark in the packaging that cannot be copied, a microscope image checked by a trained model, or a code on the pack checked at the shop or on the buyer's phone.

The buyers of this software are the brands that want to protect their products, and the marketplaces and shops that resell them. This Market Segment covers three companies that sell it.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

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Back to the sneakers and the medicine from the start of this Market Segment. Here are the companies that help prove they are real.

Crane Authentication

makes the security features on packaging and labels. These include micro-optics, tiny optical patterns that are very hard to copy, and invisible particles that only a special reader can see. It also sells digital brand protection: it searches the internet for listings that sell fakes of a brand's products. It has engineers in Bengaluru, and the most job postings in this Market Segment. (More on it in Market Segment 4.15, Physical security, surveillance and trust and safety, in Industry Vertical 4, Cybersecurity.)

Entrupy

authenticates luxury handbags, sneakers and other goods. It uses a handheld microscope, and a model trained on images of real and fake items. Resale marketplaces and shops use it. Entrupy has engineers in Bengaluru. (More on resale marketplaces in Market Segment 26.2, Resale and classifieds platforms, in Industry Vertical 26, E-commerce and D2C brands.)

Ennoventure Inc.

is another authentication company. It has engineers in Bengaluru.

For medicines, another way is to give every pack its own number, so it can be tracked from the factory to the pharmacy. The industry calls this serialisation. (More on it in Market Segment 25.5, Pharma manufacturing and quality software, in Industry Vertical 25, Pharma and life sciences.)

Serialisation: the factory gives every medicine pack its own number, and the number is checked again at the distributor and the pharmacy, so the pack can be tracked from the factory to the buyer.

The fake that a model can make.

The same models that check products can also create convincing fake images, labels and listings. So authentication is moving to marks and signatures that exist only in the physical product. A camera and a model check them where the product is sold or resold.

That is how a buyer can tell the real sneakers or medicine from the fake. The proof is a mark that cannot be copied, a microscope and a model, or a number that follows the pack from the factory.

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What retail tech companies hire for.

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