RFID and Serialization

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are the best known contenders for serialization, but the technology faces significant challenges.

• The tag cost per item can be prohibitive. Even with the most optimistic forecasts for tag costs it may not be possible to extend RFID tagging beyond case-level or high value goods. A 5¢ tag cost can exceed the packaging cost of a low-ticket item.
• RFID tags are incompatible with products containing metals or liquids without major advances in reading ability or major changes to packaging design and methods.
• Consumer privacy issues in many countries mean that tags are often killed at point of sale, preventing after sales uses such as product recalls.

RFID and Product Authentication

The inclusion of public-key signatures in RFID tags has been proposed as a means of protecting high-value items such as pharmaceuticals. Second-generation (Gen2) EPC RFID tags may cost as little as 5¢ by 2010 according to some forecasts but, even at that level, there is a serious cost issue for consumer applications.

While Gen2 RFID tags are incorporating new features such as authenticated writes to protect the integrity of tag data, they are unlikely to be manufactured with sufficient user memory to accommodate randomized or public-key digital signatures. High volume, low cost tags are likely to adopt the minimum Gen2 specification, with no allowance for user memory.

RFID and Brand Loyalty

The interrogation of RFID tags by mobile phones is already a possibility. Like Hyperlabel, these applications require close proximity. Unlike Hyperlabel, true webpage-like interactivity is not possible with RFID since an RFID tag only provides a single link. The potential for consumers to interact with brand owners via RFID tags will be limited as long as consumer privacy issues remain extant.

Hyperlabel and RFID

Hyperlabel and RFID can effectively co-exist to take advantage of your infrastructure investment and identify and track all of your products through the supply chain.

Hyperlabel technology provides an opportunity for companies to leverage their investment in EPCs and RFID to extend product serialization to low cost items and to areas where RFID is likely to remain impractical due to product content or packaging materials, authentication concerns, or consumer privacy concerns.

Hyperlabel can also be deployed alongside RFID on the same product item, as a backup, to ensure redundancy, and to promote consumer applications and brand loyalty through interactivity.