iPico offers RFID protocol

By Warwick Ashford, ITWeb London correspondent

Johannesburg, 17 Aug 2006

A former South African radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions company has renounced the intellectual property rights to its air communication protocol in the hope that it will be adopted as an international standard.

Canadian-owned iPico says it has made its SA-developed IP-X protocol for communication between RFID tags and readers freely available to promote use of RFID technology by supplementing standards.

"We have concentrated our patents around products such as tamper-proof locks using the IP-X protocol, but the basic protocol is now free for anyone to use," says Pretoria-based iPico COO, Luther Erasmus.

iPico has submitted the IP-X protocol to the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) in Geneva, Switzerland for consideration as an RFID air interface standard.

The company claims its IP-X protocol solves key security problems, reader limitations, and ultra-high frequency (UHF) spectrum restrictions not addressed by standards, including the EPCglobal`s Gen 2 specification that became an ISO standard in June.

Erasmus says the IP-X protocol is the only one that can handle all RFID frequencies. It also enables readers to authenticate tags five times faster and provides better security by including asymmetrical or public key elliptic curve cryptography to overcome inconsistent network connections and unreliable readers.

However, EPCglobal says its Gen 2 specification meets the needs of users for supply chain applications.

Fiona van der Linde, EPCglobal unit leader within the Consumer Goods Council of SA, says while iPico may have its own merits for some applications, it is not perceived as an alternative to Gen 2 because it addresses different requirements.

"There are sufficient standards already and developing a new one may cause confusion in the marketplace," she adds.

ISO member countries are to vote on whether to accept the IP-X protocol at the end of September. If the vote is positive, an ISO standard will be developed using the iPico proposal as a contribution. This process usually takes about a year, says Erasmus.