Patent US 8,335,491

A system for verifying the authenticity of an item. At least one cellular telephone has an image recorder, a receiver and a transmitter. A cellular telephone network receives a recorded image transmitted by the cellular telephone and forwards the recorded image to at least one remote server. An image-recognition device is accessible to the remote server, the image recognition device being configured to decode a latent image embedded within the recorded image and to generate a dataset corresponding to the latent image. A processor accessible to the remote server generates a response corresponding to the dataset and indicating the authenticity status of the item, the response being forwarded from the remote server to the receiver of the cellular telephone by means of the cellular telephone network.