Who Invented the Barcoding System?

The retail bar code system (with EAN and UPC barcodes) was invented in the 1970’s by George Laurer at IBM. Mr Laurer supports reseller barcode numbers like ours and doesn’t want GS1 to have a monopoly on barcodes.

The first time a retail barcode was scanned at a checkout was in a supermarket in Ohio in 1974 (on a pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum).

Go here for CD barcodes, DVD barcodes, ISBN book barcodes and ISSN magazine barcodes.