Flying Null develops world's smallest smart tag

And as manufacturers rush to meet consumer demand for traceability and satisfy stringent new regulations, such an innovative idea could receive a fair deal of interest.

The company, which develops magnetic tagging technologies, says that the new transfer tags can be incorporated into brand labels. At only 3-micron thick, they have no effect on the wet or PSA label application process.

In addition, existing label designs can be retained and no changes or costs in application speed or line yield are required. As the tags are sandwiched between the label and the bottle, they can only be removed by defacing the brand label, and in the cases of diversion, devaluing the product.

The company claims that the new tags also offer manufacturers greater flexibility when choosing where to apply tags to packaging and products in the production process. The tags can be laminated, embedded, applied directly to the surface, over printed or even form part of the final packaging design or incorporated into shrink sleeve seals and secondary packaging, or even in to corks.

Although thinner than Flying Null's other elector magnetic identification (EMID) tags, the company claims that the new transfer tags offer the same durability. They can reputedly survive harsh environments varying from high temperatures of over 200°C to very low temperatures. They can also withstand exposure to high levels of radiation, microwaves, and electrostatic and electromagnetic fields.

The tags can be supplied in various formats to cater for product authentication, batch control, warranty control or Track & Trace applications. Suitably positioned and applied, the tags will also provide machine-readable tamper evidence functionality.

When used in tandem with other technologies, FN transfer tags can add a covert machine-readable feature to security print features or optical technologies such as Holograms.

The tags are magnetically neutral tags that can be easily coded with information. This data can then be read with a simple hand-held scanner. Because of their magnetic nature the tags can be read without line-of-sight. As such they can be completely hidden within products or packaging.

Flying Null​ claims that the new FN Transfer Tag is also ideal for recycling applications. The low metallic content and small size of the tags means that they introduce less then 0.3 parts per million into glass when recycled; also, there is no danger of inclusions occurring.