Method to store a secret QR code into a colored secure QR code

Summary

A continuation of the color-encoded Secure QR family. The parent (10,152,663) showed how to overlay a second, hidden QR onto a visible color QR by exploiting the fact that standard scanners read only luminance and ignore hue. This continuation addresses the real-world reality that secure labels rarely live on flat surfaces.

Anti-counterfeit and supply-chain labels routinely wrap around bottles, follow the curve of a box edge, or sit at an angle on irregular packaging. A QR code printed flat and then deformed onto a curve will not scan as a square — the camera sees a warped quadrilateral — and the hidden color channel suffers the same distortion on top of any error already in the visible payload.

The new claims cover geometric pre-distortion of the secure QR before printing, so that when the label is applied to the curved or angled surface it is designed for, the projection that reaches a standard scanner is a clean square. The patent describes both linear (matrix) and nonlinear (homogeneous coordinate) transforms, tuned to the specific surface geometry the label will sit on. The practical result is that the color-encoded secure QR technology becomes usable on package edges, cylinders, and other non-planar substrates that dominate real packaging.