Barcodes are the once and future king in the area of product identification. Over the past few years barcodes have maintained their place as the first line of defense for product authentication because they pack so much information in such a small area. They are used for everything from track and trace to two part product authentication. Complexity of barcodes and the systems needed to indentify and verify them are continuing to grow. It seems their main limitation is that they are more often than not, visible because most barcodes are validated through optical systems. A visible barcode is one that can be replicated by a counterfeiter. However, the overt, visible nature of barcodes is not likely to change anytime soon as more and more barcodes are being validated by the end user by means of scanned images, submissions of photographs to online databases, apps on mobile phones, or handheld scanners in warehouses.BrandWatch Technologies has the ability to produce a host of covert barcodes that will make identification and verification of the barcodes more secure than ever. By understanding the limitations of the current state of the art in covert marking detection hardware, a plan was formulated to explore ways of circumventing those limitations by changing the ways the barcodes are printed. By linking the covert markers with the newest developments in ink technology, new and unexpected ways of producing barcodes were discovered. We will outline ways to connect the cutting edge of authentication markers to printing ink technology and identification hardware to produce covert barcode systems while maintaining the integrity of customer facing overt barcodes.