Legal Definition of Barcode

In professional wrestling, the WWE D-Generation X team integrates a barcode in its entry video as well as on a T-shirt. [80] [81] The barcode concept was developed by Norman Joseph Woodland, who drew a series of lines in the sand to represent Morse code, and Bernard Silver. A patent was granted in 1966 and NCR was the first company to develop a commercial scanner for reading barcode symbology. A pack of Wrigley chewing gum was the first item ever scanned at the Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, NCR`s hometown. 2D barcodes can embed a hyperlink to a Web page. A mobile device with a built-in camera can be used to read the pattern and browse the linked website, which can help a shopper find the best price for a nearby item. Since 2005, airlines have been using a standard IATA 2D barcode on boarding passes (Barcoded Boarding Passes (BCBP), and since 2008, 2D barcodes sent to mobile phones enable electronic boarding passes. [24] GTIN-12 encoded in UPC A barcode. The first and last digits are always placed outside the icon to indicate the quiet areas needed for 1D barcode readers to work properly.

1D barcodes are a series of lines used to store textual information such as product type, size, and color. They appear at the top of Universal Product Codes (UPCs) used on product packaging to track packages through the U.S. Postal Service, as well as in ISBN numbers on the back of books. In the mid-1970s, the ANCA established the U.S. Supermarket Ad Hoc Committee on a Uniform Code for Grocery Products to establish guidelines for barcode development. In addition, a symbol selection subcommittee was created to standardize the approach. In collaboration with consulting firm McKinsey & Co., they developed a standardized 11-digit code to identify products. The committee then issued a call for tenders to develop a barcode system for printing and reading the code. The request was addressed to Singer, National Cash Register (NCR), Litton Industries, RCA, Pitney-Bowes, IBM and many others. [12] Various barcode approaches have been explored, including linear codes, RCA concentric circle codes, starburst models, and others. A matrix code, also known as a 2D barcode or simply a 2D code, is a two-dimensional way of representing information. It is similar to a linear barcode (1 dimension), but can display more data per unit area.

When barcode symbols are scanned to identify an item. It is used to track goods, inventory, and even employees. Linear symbologies are optimized for laser scanners that scan a beam of light in a straight line over the barcode and read a slice of light-dark barcode patterns. By scanning at an angle, the modules appear wider, but the width ratios are not changed. Stacked symbologies are also optimized for laser scanning, with the laser making multiple passes through the barcode. Depending on the application, however, there are more than a dozen barcode variants. In 1971, an IBM team was assembled for an intensive planning session that spent 12 to 18 hours a day determining how the technology would be deployed and operated consistently across the system, and planning a deployment plan. In 1973, the team met with food manufacturers to introduce the symbol that had to be printed on the packaging or labels of all their products. There were no cost savings for a grocery store unless at least 70% of food products had the barcode printed on the product by the manufacturer. IBM estimated that 75% would be needed in 1975. Although this was achieved, there were still scanners in fewer than 200 grocery stores in 1977. [15] The barcode was invented by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver and patented in the United States in 1951.

[1] The invention was based on Morse code,[2] which was extended to thin and thick bars. However, it took more than twenty years for this invention to become a commercial success. An early use of some type of barcode in an industrial context was sponsored by the Association of American Railroads in the late 1960s. This system, developed by General Telephone and Electronics (GTE) and called KarTrak ACI (Automatic Car Identification), involved the application of coloured bands in various combinations on steel plates attached to the sides of railway vehicles. Two plates were used per car, one on each side, with the arrangement of colored stripes encoding information such as ownership, type of equipment and identification number. [3] The licence plates were read by a ground scanner, which was located, for example, at the entrance to a rail yard as the car passed. [4] The project was abandoned after about ten years because the system proved unreliable after prolonged use. [3] Artists used barcodes in art, such as Scott Blake`s Jesus Barcode, as part of the postmodernist movement. Example of a stacked barcode. More precisely, a barcode «codablock». On the other hand, the experience of scanning barcodes in these stores has shown additional benefits.

The detailed sales information captured by the new systems has helped to better meet customer habits, needs and preferences. This was reflected in the fact that about 5 weeks after the barcode scanners were installed, sales in grocery stores typically started to increase and eventually stabilized at a 10-12% increase in sales that never decreased. There was also a 1-2% decrease in the operating costs of these stores, which allowed them to lower their prices and thus increase their market share. The field showed that the return on investment for a barcode reader was 41.5%. Until 1980, 8,000 branches per year were rebuilt. [15] In video games, the protagonist of the Hitman video game series has a barcode tattoo on the back of his head. In addition, QR codes can be scanned for an additional mission on Watch Dogs. Two different 2D barcodes used in the film: Dolby Digital between the gable holes with the «Double-D» logo in the middle and Sony Dynamic Digital Sound in the blue area to the left of the gable holes The first and cheapest barcode scanners consist of a fixed light and a single photo sensor that is manually moved over the barcode. Barcode scanners can be divided into three categories based on their connection to the computer. The old type is the RS-232 barcode scanner.

This type requires special programming to transfer input data to the application program. Keyboard interface scanners connect to a computer using a PS/2 or AT keyboard-compatible adapter cable (a «keyboard corner»). The barcode data is sent to the computer as if it had been entered on the keyboard. In architecture, a building in the new city of Lingang by German architects Gerkan, Marg and Partners contains a barcode design,[76] as well as a shopping mall called Shtrikh-kod (Russian barcode) at Narodnaya ulitsa («People`s Street») in the Nevsky district of St. Petersburg, Russia. [77] Convinced that the system was viable as it continued to grow, Woodland left Drexel, moved into his father`s Florida apartment, and continued to work on the system. His next inspiration came from Morse code, and he formed his first barcode from sand on the beach. «I just extended the dots and dashes down and made them narrow and wide lines.» To read them, he adapted the technology of optical soundtracks in films by using a 500-watt bulb shining through the paper on an RCA935 photomultiplier tube (from a film projector) on the other side.[9] He later decided that the system would work best if it was printed as a circle instead of a line so that it could be scanned in any direction. A barcode (often thought of as a single word, barcode) is the small image of lines (bars) and spaces that are placed on retail items, ID cards, and mail items to identify a specific product number, person, or location. The code uses a sequence of vertical bars and spaces to represent numbers and other symbols. A barcode symbol typically consists of five parts: a silent area, a start character, data characters (including an optional check mark), a stop sign, and another silent area.

A barcode checker works like a reader, but instead of just decoding a barcode, a verifier performs a series of tests. For linear barcodes, these are tests: These sample phrases are automatically selected from various online information sources to reflect the current use of the word «barcode». The views expressed in the examples do not represent the views of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us your feedback. A barcode is a square or rectangular image composed of a series of parallel black lines and white areas of different widths that can be read by a scanner. Barcodes are applied to products for quick identification. They are used in retail stores as part of the purchasing process, in warehouses to track inventory, and on invoices to support accounting, among many other applications. In the TV series Dark Angel, the protagonist and the other transgenes of the Manticore X series have barcodes on their necks.

Barcodes are also used in some types of non-contact 1D and 2D position sensors. A number of barcodes are used in some types of absolute 1D linear encoders. Barcodes are packed so tightly that the reader always has one or two barcodes in their field of vision. As a fiducial marker, the relative position of the barcode in the reader`s field of view allows for incrementally precise positioning, in some cases with sub-pixel resolution. The data decoded by the barcode gives the absolute approximate position. A «skill mat,» such as the Howell binary pattern and the anoto dot pattern, is a 2D barcode designed so that even if only a tiny portion of the entire mat is in the reader`s field of view, a reader can find its absolute X, Y position and rotation in the mat. [22] [23] Barcode readers are relatively inexpensive and extremely accurate compared to key entry, with only about 1 replacement error entered in 15,000 to 36 trillion characters. [38] [unreliable source?] The exact error rate depends on the type of barcode.