Chemical and physical anti-counterfeiting technologies use special substances to mark and verify objects. They exploit the inherent randomness of the patterns produced when certain chemical processes or substances are applied to materials, serving as markers.

The main purpose of these technologies is authentication without simultaneous unique product identification. Specialised hardware or laboratory tests are needed to read and verify the markers they create. This makes it very difficult for third parties to reproduce similar markers. 

The costs involved in creating and affixing the chemical and physical markers are generally low. However, the specialised automatic reading devices, when needed, can be expensive. Therefore, it is worth bearing in mind that immediate on-site verification is often not possible. Instead, testing has to be carried out by laboratories, which requires more time.