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Real McCoys: Foil Flex Products' security measures safeguard brand names and exclusivity deals.

Article Excerpt
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THE newest item rolled out by Foil Flex Products Inc. is invisible, but it has the potential to save consumer products businesses millions of dollars each year that are lost to counterfeiting.

Counterfeiting--the sale of copied branded goods--is on the rise. Another problem is "diversion," when products are sold at sales points in violation of exclusivity agreements. Together, these practices cost U.S. companies about $70 billion a year.

Foil Flex, which specializes in putting security measures such as holography, radio frequency identification devices and light devices on products from golf balls to electronics for inventory control, was initially created to provide services that could catch criminals. Recently, the Valencia-based company expanded one of its patented technologies.

For three years, Foil Flex had been using an invisible technology inside product labels--tags on shirts, for example--so that merchandise can be identified. If detectives working for a shirt company find suspected counterfeit merchandise, it's easy to confirm authenticity by checking for the hidden code.

Now, Foil Flex has made that invisible technology computer scanable so...

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