SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COUNTERFEIT PROTECTION

A system and a method for preventing counterfeiting activities utilize an image detection scheme that uses only a few portions of restricted-document images, i.e., templates, to determine whether an input image is a duplicate of a restricted-document image. The image detection scheme can reliably operate at very low resolutions, which allows the use of small kernels for image correlation and reduces the number of pixels that have to be actually processed. The system is designed to be incorporated into a host device, such as a copy machine, a scanner, a personal computer or a printer, to detect a potential counterfeiting activity, so that an appropriate action can be taken to prevent and/or to report the detected activity. The image detection scheme allows the system to operate at an increased detection speed, while minimizing the memory requirement. During an off-line training procedure, a training module of the system derives a parameter file that contains detection descriptors for the restricted-document images, including threshold intervals that are defined using selected kernels and templates of the restricted-document images. The type of kernels and templates selected by the training module can vary, depending on the desired memory requirement and the desired on-line performance. During an on-line detection procedure, a detection module of the system projects portions of the input image and compares the resulting projection value with the threshold intervals to derive template match candidates. The relative coordinates of the template match candidates in the input image are then compared with relative coordinates of the templates in the restricted-document images to determine if the input image matches a particular restricted-document image.