Upmarket furniture, interior and lighting design brand Moooi is adding an in-house designed high security NFC tag to all its products to provide customers with a guarantee that they are purchasing an official Moooi product rather than a fake.

“Nowadays, mass production and counterfeiting are becoming more and more common,” the brand says. “The process of designing, producing and marketing a new authentic design takes time.

“During that time, it’s easy for counterfeiters to copy and reproduce the design and flood the market with cheap imitations. Fighting these malpractices often feels futile due to large counterfeit manufacturers and distributors keeping a low profile or countries where counterfeiters aren’t prosecuted.

“Moooi realized that instead of fighting off copies, the smarter choice would be to shift the focus on emphasizing their own designs. Protecting Moooi designs with clever technology, while providing proud Moooi product owners digital proof of their investment. And just like that, The Button was born. The digital safe keeper of an investment in the future of authentic design.”

The Button makes use of Secure Unique NFC (SUN) messaging to generate an authentication message which is turned into a tap-unique URL each time it is tapped by an NFC-enabled iOS or Android device. The NFC device reads the unique URL, sends it to a server for secure tag and message authentication, retrieves the verification result and, if the item is found to be authentic, displays a Moooi-designed verification image on the device’s screen.

“The Button is a hi-tech superhero with NFC technology that will accompany every Moooi design,” the brand says. “It may be small, but don’t let its size fool you as it gives designs their unique identity and acts as proof of authenticity.”

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