Abstract: An efficient and universal anti-counterfeit protection of commercial products allows consumers, wholesalers and interested regulatory authorities to rapidly and reliably check the authenticity of products put into circulation. The authentication system administrator manufactures and provides the manufacturer of an authentic product with the requested quantity of authentication marks. Each authentication mark includes a set of symbols. One part of this set is open for reading and is the identification combination. The authentication marks are attached to the products such that reading the identification combination is impossible without causing permanent damage to the protective media. Then administrator has a description of the items bearing such authentication marks, and checks the identification combination contained in the request against the identification combination whose serial number in the authentication database coincides with the serial number of the item.