RFID ITEM LEVEL LABEL CONSTRUCTION WITHOUT NEED FOR CHIP OR STRAP ATTACHMENT

FABRICATION D'ETIQUETTE DE NIVEAU D'ARTICLE A IDENTIFICATION PAR RADIOFREQUENCE SANS PUCE NI ATTACHE A BARRETTE

English Abstract

An RFID item level construct involves an antenna printed or otherwise placed
upon or integrated
into a label or wrapper; an RFID strap placed directly upon the surface of an
item level container, such as
a bottle, case, box, or container of any irregular, regular, round, square or
other shape made of any non-
metallic material, or if made of metallic material placed using a spacer (such
as foam or cardboard); and
an indirect matching of the two components by placing the pre-printed label
upon the container in
exactly the usual fashion without regard to any special attachment process,
material, connecting or other
handling requirement in order to make a fully functioning RFID-enabled item.

Claims

CLAIM:
An RFID item level construct involving an antenna printed or otherwise placed
upon or
integrated into a label or wrapper; an RFID strap placed directly upon the
surface of an item level
container, such as a bottle, case, box, or container of any irregular,
regular, round, square or other shape
made of any non-metallic material, or if made of metallic material placed
using a spacer (such as foam or
cardboard); and an indirect matching of the two components by placing the pre-
printed label upon the
container in exactly the usual fashion without regard to any special
attachment process, material,
connecting or other handling requirement in order to make a fully functioning
RFID-enabled item.
4

Description

CA 02540953 2006-03-27
RFID ITEM LEVEL LABEL CONSTRUCTION WITHOUT NEED FOR CHIP OR STRAP
ATTACHMENT
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) labels traditionally consist of an
antenna, (printed, etched,
screened, foil stamped) and an IC (Integrated Circuit), either attached
directly to the antenna leads, or
integrated in a so-called "strap packaged format", whereby the leads of the
straps can be aligned with the
antenna leads for easier placement. Straps are particularly useful for
connecting RFID chips to printed
antennas in the on-press label construction where antennas are printed on the
same substrate stock as is
used for labels or consumer good packaging material
The problem with attaching straps to printed antennas is that these straps
have to be handled on a
high-speed press, using very expensive and static-sensitive equipment,
generating chip and substrate
waste, slowing the production process (e.g in label printing applications). A
further issue is the fact that
the strap-attach process is largely controlled by Avery Dennison Corporation
(e.g. US Patent
No.6,951,596) which makes it difficult for label converters to find machinery
which uses non-Avery
patented technology, adding cost, complexity and market-entry barriers to the
manufacturing of RFID
enabled labels. This leaves as the only choice to utlize pre-made inlays,
already containing the chip
attached to an antenna, usually on a PET material, and gluing such inlay into
the label construction.
The above is acceptable for case tagging, pallet labeling and other
applications not involving the
tagging of individual items, such as consumer goods packaging. Such packaging
often involves very
specialized labels. For example, with cosmetics and personal hygiene products
labels are often made of
translucent plastic material into which standard RFID inlays cannot easily be
placed. Placing inlays
would interfere with the graphics of the item labels, or create an undesired
look to the package itself.
Label converters who already have packaging and filling lines are going to be
hard-pressed to
integrate chip or strap-attachment into their finely tuned high speed
production systems. Therefore it
would be desirable to be able to produce item level RFID constructs which do
not require a chip or strap
to be attached during high-speed label making.
The present invention circumscribes a system which is extremely flexible and
requires no
changes to label making/printing equipment, no changes to item filling (such
as cosmetic container
filling), does not impact the look or feel of the item level label, and does
not result in any chip waste due
to static or improperly attached chips or straps. In fact, the present
invention involves the "marriage" of
three distinct items:
1) the item level container, such as a lotion bottle, shampoo bottle,
cosmetic container or such;
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CA 02540953 2006-03-27
2) the item level label, including so-called "invisible" labels made of
transparent and nearly invisible label stock giving a highly desired
"finished" look and feel to consumer item packages; and
3) the chip strap which is available in pre constructed format on
tape-and-reel from a variety of suppliers, such as TI, Alien, ST Micro,
Phillips etc. Although the chips can be of any frequency, the preferred
frequency range is in the UHF or higher range.
The method of the present invention can be described as follows:
A label is printed. Labels invariably contain a barcode field which is printed
against an opaque
field (usually white) on transparent labels, or in case of paper label printed
directly on the paper
substrate. The antenna shape is printed directly onto either the back of the
stock (in case of paper on the
backside of the graphics), or it can be printed as a first layer, then
overprinted with opaque color before
being overprinted with the barcode. This is just one way of placing the
antenna, but obviously there are
other ways of printing and "hiding" such an antenna.
The point of the present invention is to make the placement of the printed
antenna convenient to
the individual package format without disturbing the esthetics of the look and
feel of the package.
Such labels can be printed in large volumes, without the need to worry about
chip strap
placement, or even the brand of chip to be placed.
At some point before the label is applied onto the item level, the chip strap
is placed onto the
ITEM container (in previous constructions, the strap is glued or attached onto
the label itself and the
entire RFID label is placed onto the structure). It is very easy to attach
straps onto containers, as they
basically handle like small stickers, or holograms. It is up to the packager
to find the best way to place
the strap onto the item level container. For example the strap could be placed
within a slight indentation
in the wall of the container.
The strap must be placed in such a way that once the label is applied, the
strap leads coincide
with the antenna pads. However, it is not necessary to have a direct
conductive electrical connection,
especially in the case of UHF (approx. 915 Mhz) tags. That means even if the
antenna is printed on the
front side of the substrate, and the backside is in contact with the strap and
item level package, it would
become a working item level RFID construct. Obviously, the same holds true if
there is a layer of
adhesive (non conductive standard label adhesive) between the back of the
label and the strap.
Such constructs have been built as per the following example:
Plastic shampoo bottle purchased at drug store
Alien UHF strap was acquired.
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CA 02540953 2006-03-27
Existing "invisible" plastic label was removed from the shampoo bottle.
A patch antenna coinciding with the size of the barcode field was printed on
the
label (using XINKTM InstaCureTM UHF Silver Aqueous Flexographic Ink) printed
on a 551bs semigloss Fasson adhesive paper stock
The paper label was cut out around the shape of the patch antenna.
The antenna patch was placed on the backside of the transparent item level
product label after
having been removed from the bottle, in two ways a) printed antenna side
oriented toward the bottle and
b) printed antenna side oriented toward the outside.
The working UHF strap was placed upon the bottle.
The label was positioned so that the strap leads would be matched to the
antenna leads
The item was read using a 915 Mhz UHF antenna and reader at various
distances.
In both version (a) and version 9b), the antenna and strap construction
integrated onto the shampoo bottle were readable.
Fig. 1 is an exploded view illustrating the components that would be utilized
in achieving an
item level construct in accordance with the present invention, namely a bottle
to which the construct is
applied, chip strap receivable in a suitable indentation in the bottle an RFID
antenna positioned in one of
two available locations, suitable adhesive and the label stock for the
article.
Fig. 2 illustrates an assembly station for applying label stock to an article
such as a bottle which
has already been provided with a chip strap in a suitable indentation thereof.
The labels, each with
antenna attached thereto, are fed seriatim to the application unit which
receives the article, with the chip
strap facing upwardly. At the unit each label in turn is removed from the web
of labels and applied to the
article so that the antenna is located appropriately relative to the chip
strap, thereby rendering the article
fully labeled and ready for shipment, with an RFID tag thereon.
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Representative Drawing