GCAL Concludes Acquisition of Gemprint and other IP Assets

(IDEX Online News) - The Palmieri Group, founder and owner of GCAL has acquired Gemprint the non-invasive diamond identification and registration system. Palmieri did not disclose how much they paid, only saying that it was a cash transaction.

The purchase included all of Gemprints’ worldwide patents, trademarks, copyrights, as well as, developmental prototypes, advanced software, databases (1978 – present) and all other remaining intellectual property relating to the identification, light performance, and diamond grading business, formerly owned by Collectors Universe, Inc.

GCAL has been utilizing Gemprint technology in Botswana, Canada, China, India, Israel, and the U.S. to audit and support country of origin authenticity of diamonds for many years. In addition, all GCAL graded diamonds are Gemprinted and stored in its DiamondID International Database.

Angelo W. Palmieri, President of Gemprint, will handle and coordinate all Gemprint sales, service, and contractual agreements and integrate the new Gemprint technology into the 33 year-old international Gemprint database.

“We are excited to be able to share the new Gemprint technology with all diamond laboratories, manufacturers, retailers, and most of all, consumers who seek positive identification protection of one of their most prized and sentimental possessions, their diamonds,” Angelo Palmieri said in a statement.

GCAL’s President Don Palmieri, who has used Gemprint since its inception in 1978, initiated a complete redesign of the Gemprint instrumentation, application, and advanced software in 2008.

The Gemprint scanner has been redesigned as a gravity-fed, auto-alignment system, which eliminates the need for manual alignment and greatly curbs the chances of human error. The newly designed software allows matching against hundreds of thousands of images of registered diamonds within seconds. A demonstration of the new instrumentation can be seen here.

GCAL said that diamond firms that have digital Gemprint scanners from 1994 or later are eligible to reconnect to Gemprint and enjoy free Gemprint Registrations until the end of 2011.