Checking the provenance of goods in a shop
or domestic residence.

Situation

Laser etching, needle peening and conventional engraving, provide a means by which it is possible to indelibly mark most items that have a hard surface with an unobtrusive 2D barcode.  Tests indicate that a laser etcher takes around 1/100th of a second to inscribe a 2D barcode.

Imagine a situation where most items purchased from stores had a unique ID indelibly engraved upon them at their time of manufacture.  Imagine also if all removals companies indelibly marked valuable items of household furniture and cherished possessions with a unique ID also.

In such a situation, it would be possible for police to scan any item and determine when it was purchased and even, if the owner agrees, who purchased it.

This would make the detection of stolen property extremely easy.

Determining the provenance of a cartridge case

Marking ammunition

According to Oxfam around 12 billion bullets are produced in the world each year.  The base of the cartridge case of ammunition is generally stamped with:

1. a lot number,
2. details regarding the calibre of the round, and
3. the ammunition factory in which the round was made.

With NuEra-ID's technology, it is possible to inscribe, using a laser etcher, a unique ID on the base of every cartridge case and projectile.  This would allow every round of ammunition and its component parts to be traced.  It would be possible to determine the manufacturing ammunition factory, the wholesaler, the retailer and finally the purchaser of the round.  As with marking of all items of value, this would be a significant assistance to law-enforcement.