The molecular technology specialists applied DNA Sciences (ADNAS) to have received a Notice of Allowance for its outstanding US patented application, entitled Method and device for marking fibrous materials.

Awaiting the patent to be issued in the coming months, it grounds ADNA’S goal of improving traceability and transparency within cotton supply chains through the use of its DNA marker technology.

James Hayward, the president and CEO of the New York outfits commented that despite the lockdown in the global economic activities that has impacted the worldwide textile supply chains they serve, supply chain certainty and social responsibility remain fundamental to the long term strategies of the textile industry.

ADNAS’s PCR-based DNA tagging technologies are utilized across the industry and have huge potential within the textile sector as there is an incline in the number of stakeholders who prioritize sustainability.

In the context, the applied DNA’s patent pending cotton-tagging solution called CartainT has the capacity to provide peace of mind for users by primarily making the material in the start of the life and authenticating this all across to the resultant product in which it is integrated.

Haywards stresses that transparency has become of great importance in today's times. They believe that the pandemic has increased consumer awareness on the need for authenticity in textiles as it is now used as personal protection. As the economic activities within the industry scale they believe that the CartainT platform is in the right position to address the critical issues of traceability and authenticity in their traditional home textile base as well as a new opportunity being currently explored.

MeiLin Wan, the company’s vice president of textile sales, stated that the DNA marker technology holds great potential in terms of scalability within the fashion and textile industry. She believes that the key to CertainT platform for cotton is the ability to cost effectively tag cotton in large volume while concurrently collecting data that informs the supply chain down to each individual element such as date, time, location of tagging, the type of cotton being tagged, among others.

This solution has been leveraged by the industry on a number of occasions due to its ability to authenticate a material’s origin and get rid of uncertain counterfeiting. 

Hayward stated that the extension of their patent-pending protection to cover our method of DNA-tagging cotton demonstrates their commitment to the brand protection of their CertainT platform and ensure their capability to deliver supply chain security and authenticity to current and future CertainT users.