October 30, 2024
Asahi Kasei Corp.
TIS Inc.

Asahi Kasei and TIS have begun utilizing their jointly established Akliteia™ digital anti-counterfeiting platform to authenticate functional material in India. Starting in October 2024, together with Nippon Rare Metal, Inc., this is the first case of Akliteia™ being utilized overseas.

With globalized supply chains, the emergence of counterfeit goods at export destinations has become a serious issue, necessitating efforts to eliminate counterfeits in the distribution process. Exported goods generally pass through several operators such as importers and intermediaries before reaching the user, which increases the risk of contamination with counterfeits. While Akliteia™ has been used to verify the authenticity of final products, counterfeit raw materials and process materials used in manufacturing are becoming more problematic. Being of inferior quality, such counterfeit materials can significantly impair the quality of finished products and reduce production yields. This makes it increasingly important to apply measures against counterfeits throughout the entire supply chain.

Nippon Rare Metal sells selenium as a functional material used in the processing of diamonds. Selenium is used for scanning to inspect rough diamonds for processing. Cut diamonds can be obtained efficiently by identifying the location of impurities within the rough diamonds. Since the quality of selenium affects the accuracy of this inspection, which has a significant influence on processing efficiency, high-purity grades of selenium are traded at high prices, and many counterfeit products have been discovered in packaging disguised as the genuine article.

If low-purity counterfeit selenium is used, reduced inspection accuracy results in a lower amount of cut diamonds that can be extracted in the processing of rough diamonds. Given this situation which risks damaging the brand value of its genuine selenium product, Nippon Rare Metal decided to utilize Akliteia™ to protect against counterfeit products.

Using the Akliteia™ platform, Nippon Rare Metal attaches anti-counterfeit labels on the selenium products to be shipped from Japan, and importers in India register distribution information on the blockchain for the products they import and sell to intermediary agents. Even if counterfeit products are introduced into the supply chain, the final user of the selenium can verify the authenticity of products before use.

Asahi Kasei and TIS aim to maintain the reliability of global transactions and eliminate counterfeits from the supply chain by providing an accurate and secure authentication platform.

About Akliteia™

The Akliteia™ platform consists of the three elements of an anti-counterfeit label, a scanning device, and a blockchain, to ensure both authenticity and originality. The transparent anti-counterfeit label is manufactured using proprietary material and technology of Asahi Kasei, with special patterns printed in submicron resolution. With the anti-counterfeit label affixed to targeted products, it is possible to confirm the authenticity of a product at each point throughout the supply chain by scanning it with the device provided by Asahi Kasei. This also allows the number of genuine products to be tracked, while eliminating from the supply chain any counterfeits which may be discovered. Furthermore, the results of the scanning are recorded in the cloud service Akliteia™ Net which uses the Corda blockchain platform of TIS. With Akliteia™ Net, information regarding the occurrence of counterfeit products is shared across the supply chain, enabling quantification and visualization of contamination by counterfeit goods, including at what points they entered the supply chain. In addition, business privacy can be ensured by flexibly changing the scope of information sharing in response to changes in the supply chain.

Please refer to the press release of October 18, 2022:
Asahi Kasei and TIS establish Akliteia™ digital platform for anti-counterfeiting
https://www.asahi-kasei.com/news/2022/e221018.html

About Nippon Rare Metal, Inc.

Founded in 1958 and currently led by President Nobutaka Yoshizawa, Nippon Rare Metal (NRM) manufactures and sells functional materials in the electronics field, specializing in functionalizing and purifying metals and metal compounds. While supplying products to semiconductor and electronic material manufacturers, chemical manufacturers, and medical device manufacturers, NRM also collects and recycles rare metals from scrap for sale. For more information, please visit https://www.nrm-inc.co.jp/english/index.html

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