ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,288,438, issued on April 29, was assigned to SENSOR-INSTRUMENTS ENTWICKLUNGS- UND VERTRIBES-GMBH (Thurmansbang, Germany) and LEUCHTSTOFFWERK BREITUNGEN GMBH (Breitungen, Germany).

"Procedure for determining the authenticity of an object" was invented by Benedikt Daumann (Wallersdorf, Germany), Thomas Kaib (Eisenach, Germany), Thomas Bitzer (Monchengladbach, Germany), Dominik Uhlich (Bad Liebenstein, Germany) and Walter Braumandl (Thurmansbang, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for determining the authenticity of an object by marking the object with a first luminescent material with a first decay behavior over time, marking t...