Kodak and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba are behind a new start-up that aims to fight the e-commerce fake product market using invisible, digitally traceable ink markers.

Launched recently, Eapeiron will provide technology that will enable brand owners, manufacturers and retailers to protect their products from entering the ‘grey market’.

The new ‘encryption technology’ for e-commerce has been developed and manufactured by Kodak at its Rochester, New York laboratories and is based on the Traceless ink technology developed by Creo, which was acquired by Kodak in 2005.

“That technology was certainly a springboard for this, which Kodak has taken and elevated probably tenfold since then,” said Eapeiron  CEO Charles Fernandez.

The system will work by allowing brands to use the technology, leased through Eapeiron, to mark their products using a form of invisible yet traceable ink that can be scanned at any point in its journey.   “The technology is highly confidential but basically it will provide smart tracking for brands. It requires being seen by specific scanners and uses specific software components. They can successfully track their products throughout the supply chain, which will help kerb counterfeit and grey market interruptions,” he explained.

“It allows someone to determine where something was made, where it was supposed to go and where it is right now. It’s like encrypted GPS,” Fernandez added.

He said the printing or tagging devices would be embedded into manufacturers’ sites so that products could be invisibly marked during production, while the scanning equipment would be used by distribution centres and eventually retailers to verify the authenticity of the products. The technology has so far been installed at 12 “major Fortune 500 companies” including pharmaceuticals and apparel firms.