WO2002018152A1

WO2002018152A1 - Security feature

Info

Publication number: WO2002018152A1
Application number: PCT/GB2001/001100
Authority: WO
Inventors: Martin Johnson
Original assignee: Scientific Games International Ltd.
Priority date: 2000-08-30
Filing date: 2001-03-14
Publication date: 2002-03-07
Also published as: AU2001240817A1; GB0021126D0

Abstract

A card of redeemable value (2) is disclosed which is printed with secure information (6) which must be viewed to redeem the value of the card (2), the secure information (6) being typically in the form of alphanumeric characters covered by a scratch off material (10). The scratch off layer (10) is then subjected to a subsequent treatment process wherein portions of the scratch off layer (10) are treated (12) and portions remain untreated to provide the treated portions with a visibly different appearance from the untreated portions. The treated portions are arranged in a pattern which may be in the form of text or meandering lines and prevent compromise of the card by pressured application of adhesive tape to remove the scratch off (10) because during the pressured application of tape of the scratch off (10), the appearance of the treated portions and untreated portions of the card is rendered identical as the tape effectively standardises the gloss levels of the treated and untreated portions. Accordingly, after pressured application of the adhesive tape, the pattern over the scratch off resulting from the treatment of certain portions disappears and a retailer can easily identify that the card has been compromised.

Description

Security Feature

This invention relates to a security feature for a card of value, and more specifically to a card such as a lottery ticket or a so- called telephone card having information thereon which is obscured by an abradable or " scratch off" material coating so as to be secure inasmuch as that information supposedly cannot be viewed without firstly abrading or otherwise removing the scratch off material.

There are currently in production a great many types of card or ticket which are printed with information such as a particular number or alphanumeric code, or a series of indicia which must be viewed by a user before the card or ticket can be redeemed for the monetary or equivalent credit value to which the user thereof may be entitled.

In the case of lottery tickets, the use of removable scratch off materials to cover information is well known, and much of the technology already available to printers of lottery tickets can be equally applied in the production of telephone cards as the numbers which are hidden by the scratch off are used by a mobile telephone service provider to validate the card and ultimately to credit a user's account with a predetermined amount of credit, and therefore constitute a value which must not be available to a retailer of such cards prior to sale.

The important distinction to be made between lottery tickets and telephone cards however is that depending on the probabilities defined by the lottery provider, only approximately one in five tickets may be of value, and perhaps only one in every 10,000 tickets may be of significant value whereas each and every telephone card has a predetermined credit value which can be used by anyone possessing a mobile telephone adapted for use on the particular network of the particular provider for whom the card was printed. Typical values range from £5 to £50 and when it is considered that such cards are delivered in batches to retailers of all kinds throughout a particular country, the extremely security conscious approach of the network providers to production of these telephone cards can easily be understood.

Briefly, such telephone cards represent money in a different form and suitable security measures must be in place to prevent unscrupulous persons and fraudsters from either copying the cards or accessing the information beneath the scratch off layer without significantly altering the appearance of the card or of said scratch off layer.

It must also be pointed out that the variety and number of retailers being provided with batches of such telephone cards for sale training said retailers to spot end-user fraud is difficult and many of the smaller retailers either do not implement adequate security procedures for the cards or are insufficiently vigilant in the detection of fraudulent or copied cards .

For example, it has been known for fraudsters to buy a single telephone card and to adhere a layer of transparent adhesive tape, such as Sellotape® or Scotch® tape over the scratch off layer. The fraudster then pressuredly rubs over the tape in the region of the scratch off material to ensure as much of the scratch off material as possible is adhered to the tape whereafter the tape is carefully lifted away from the surface of the card leaving the printed substrate of the card surrounding the scratch off portion intact but removing sufficient scratch off material to reveal the hidden number or alphanumeric code therebeneath. A note is made of the number before the tape is returned into adhesion with the card over the scratch off material and in the regions of said card surrounding same. In this condition it is not instantly noticeable that the tape has been applied to the card without close inspection and retailers can be easily deceived that the such cards are valid and unused. In some cases, retailers are defrauded when an apparently honest purchaser requests cards for purchase and is handed same only subsequently to indicate to the retailer that he has insufficient monies to cover the cost of the cards. During the time the cards are in the possession of the seemingly honest purchaser, they are exchanged for compromised cards without the retailer noticing. Of course the retailer could also perpetrate such fraud.

Alternatively, the fraudster may sell compromised cards on a one-off basis, for example through public houses, local markets and the like.

Of course it has been proposed to sheath the cards in a sealed wrapper such as might be applied in a flow-wrapping machine, but those skilled in the art will already be aware that such wrappers do not provide any significant degree of security and researchers have established that the vast majority of sealed flow wrappings can be easily unsealed and resealed without noticeable degradation of the seal. Furthermore, such wrappings can have the effect of further obscuring any compromise or counterfeit measures to which the card within the wrapper may have been subjected once the card had been removed therefrom, and this is especially the case with the method of compromise described above.

It is also worth mentioning that the tape must remain on the card after compromise although it is barely noticeable because the majority of the scratch off layer is adhered thereto and thus complete removal of the tape necessarily significantly and recognisably impairs the scratch off layer as much thereof is removed with the tape.

Although scratch off materials are in widespread use, their inherent disadvantage is that removal of such layers by adhesive tape cannot be prevented on account of the nature of the material itself. Specifically, the essential requirement of the scratch off material is that it can be abradably removed from the usually varnished surface of the printed card, and accordingly the degree to which said scratch off adheres to the card must be limited.

It is an object of this invention to provide a means of readily identifying telephone and other cards of value having a scratch off material layer applied to a region of said card to obscure information printed on the card which have been compromised through the application and subsequent lifting of transparent adhesive tape.

According to the invention there is provided a card having a predetermined value to a user of said card, said card having printed information thereon which must be visible before any reclaim of the value of said card can be effected, said information being obscured by an abradable scratch off layer prior to purchase of said card by a user, and characterised in that a substantially transparent varnish is applied over the scratch off layer in a pattern which ensures that said scratch off layer is only partially covered with said varnish.

Preferably the pattern is a spot or text format.

Preferably the pattern of varnish is a line pattern which meanders seemingly randomly over the surface of said scratch off layer. Alternately the varnish pattern is comprised of defined alphanumeric characters to provide information.

Preferably a solid ink overprint is additionally applied to the scratch off layer either before or after the varnish patterned layer is applied.

The applicants have found that a varnish sold under the trade name of U1142GA by Coates is satisfactory, but other varnishes with similar properties may also be acceptable.

It is also foreseen by the applicant that translucent lacquers may also be used.

In an alternative aspect of the invention, there is provided a card having a predetermined value to a user of said card, said card having printed information thereon which must be visible before any reclaim of the value of said card can be effected, said information being obscured by an abradable scratch off layer prior to purchase of said card by a user, said scratch off layer having a free upper surface and a lower surface in contact with a surface of the card in the region of said information, and characterised in that specific portions of said scratch off layer are subjected to a subsequent treatment process after application over said information to provide said portions with a contrasting appearance to those portions where the treatment process was not effected such that the naked eye can immediately identify a pattern in the upper surface of said scratch off layer.

In one embodiment the treatment process comprises the compression of specific portions of said scratch off layer giving rise to an immediately recognisable contrast between compressed and non-compressed portions of said scratch off layer.

In an alternative embodiment, the treatment process comprises the application of an at least partially transparent compound such as a varnish or lacquer which partially impregnates the scratch off layer so as to darken or reduce or increase the gloss level on the surface of said scratch off layer when applied in specific portions thereof.

Preferably the transparent compound may also be partially pigmented, preferably with a fluorescing compound.

The invention prevents compromise of scratch off layers using tapes as described above because on application of the tape, the fraudster must ensure that as much scratch off as possible is adhered to the tape, and this is accomplished by rubbing a hard implement over the back of the tape when adhered to the scratch off layer. As this is done, the contrast between the portions to which the treatment process of the invention has been applied and those to which it has not is effectively erased, reversed, or at least significantly diminished as to become no longer immediately recognisable to the naked eye, and thus a retailer can easily detect when a card has been compromised according to this method.

A specific embodiment of the invention is now described by way of example with reference to the following drawings wherein

Figure 1 shows a section through a typical lottery or telephone card having a scratch off layer thereon, Figure 2 shows a plan view of the card of Figure 1 demonstrating the contrasting regions of the scratch off layer, and

Figure 3 shows a plan view of the card of Figure 2 having tape pressuredly applied over a portion of the scratch off layer.

Referring Firstly to Figure 1 there is shown a sectional view through a telephone card 2 consisting of a card substrate 4 which is having a variety of information thereon at 6 and a varnish layer applied thereover at 8 to seal the printed information and ensure that it is not smudged or otherwise impaired when the card is handled. It is to be mentioned that there may be other printed layers applied before or after the printed layer 6 which may include security features such as confusion patterns or the like to further prevent compromise of the completed card through viewing that information to be covered by a scratch off layer.

In the region of the printed information which is to be hidden, a scratch off layer 10 is applied, and in accordance with one embodiment of the invention a lacquer or varnish layer 12 is applied in an immediately identifiable pattern over the scratch off layer 10.

In Figure 2, regions 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 of the scratch off layer 10 where the varnish or lacquer was applied contrast starkly with the background region 24 of said scratch off layer, and these regions are immediately recognisable to retailers regardless of whether an additional solid ink overprint is applied to the scratch off layer before or after the varnish or lacquer layer. Additionally, there are printed on the substrate layer an indication of the value of the telephone card 26, some instructions 28 and a serial number 30 by which the validity of the printed alphanumeric code (not shown) hidden underneath the scratch off layer can be validated.

In Figure 3, an attempt at compromise of the ticket has been made by pressuredly applying a piece of translucent tape 32 and although in general the tape would be applied over the whole area of the scratch off layer 10, the tape is shown here applied in a diagonal manner to demonstrate that the application of the tape and pressuredly contacting same against said scratch off layer has the effect of reducing or eliminating the contrast between the regions 20, 22 of the scratch off layer. Although the edges of the tape 34, 36 are shown by dotted lines in the figure, in most cases they are invisible without close inspection of the card, and this is especially true if the card is re-packaged in a flow wrapper before being sold on or returned to a retailer. The translucency/transparency of the tape 32 is demonstrated by the fact that the serial number 30 is not obscured in any way by the said tape.

Claims

1. A card having a predetermined value to a user of said card, said card having printed information thereon which must be visible before any reclaim of the value of said card can be effected, said information being obscured by an abradable scratch off layer prior to purchase of said card by a user, said scratch off layer having a free upper surface and a lower surface in contact with a surface of the card in the region of said information, and characterised in that specific portions of said scratch off layer are subjected to a subsequent treatment process after application over said information to provide said portions with a contrasting appearance to those portions where the treatment process was not effected such that the naked eye can immediately identify a pattern in the upper surface of said scratch off layer.

2. A card according to claim 1 characterised in that the subsequent treatment process involves the application of a substantially translucent compound which partially impregnates the scratch off layer so as to darken or reduce or increase the gloss level on the surface of said scratch off layer when applied in specific portions thereof.

3. A card according to claim 2 characterised in that the substantially translucent compound is a varnish or lacquer.

4. A card according to claim 1 characterised in that the specific portions subjected to the subsequent treatment process for a pattern being a line or lines which meander randomly over the surface of said scratch off layer.

5. A card according to claim 3 characterised in that the varnish or translucent lacquer pattern is comprised of defined alphanumeric characters delivering a decipherable message.

6. A card according to any preceding claim characterised in that a solid ink overprint is additionally applied to the scratch off layer either before or after the subsequent treatment process has been effected.

7. A card according to claim 1 characterised in that the treatment process comprises the compression of specific portions of said scratch off layer giving rise to an immediately recognisable contrast between compressed and non-compressed portions of said scratch off layer.

8. A card according to claim 2 the translucent compound may also be partially pigmented, preferably with a fluorescing compound.