US Patent Issued to PHILIP MORRIS USA on Dec. 16 for "Method and apparatus for identifying, authenticating, tracking and tracing manufactured items" (Swiss Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,499,406, issued on Dec. 16, was assigned to PHILIP MORRIS USA INC. (Richmond, Va.).

"Method and apparatus for identifying, authenticating, tracking and tracing manufactured items" was invented by Patrick Chanez (Cheyres, Switzerland), Alain Sager (Bossonnens, Switzerland), Philippe Chatelain (Chavornay, Switzerland) and Erwan Fradet (Nyon, Switzerland).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method and apparatus for identifying manufactured items in containers, where each container is suitable for containing two or more units, and where the method comprises the steps of: associating each unit with a unique unit identifier, uniquely identifying e...