Norman Joseph Woodland, co-inventor and developer of the Barcode, dies at 91

Every standard has a story, and we are reminded of the long road of an idea to common acceptance with the death last Saturday of Norman Joseph (“Joe”) Woodland.  Co-inventor of the Barcode (along with Bernard “Bob” Silver, who died in 1963), the idea came to Mr. Woodland during an afternoon in 1948 at the beach.  Running his hand through the Florida sand, he realized that he could develop a code using lines instead of dots and dashes like Morse Code.

Woodland and Silver applied for a patent on their idea in 1949 (issued in 1952) and Woodland began working at IBM in 1951.  Although the idea was well received, it was considered impractical to implement at that time.  Woodland and Silver sold their patent to Philco in 1962 (apparently for $15,000.00).

Finally during the 1970’s, interest was revived in developing a scanning system for identification, first in the rail industry and then in the grocery business.  IBM remembered the Woodland was still employed by them and put him back on the case.  He redesigned his original circular code lines as linear ones.  However, adoption within the grocery business was still slow.  The first scan?  Wrigley’s gum at a Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio, in 1974!

Then in the 1980’s the Department of Defense adopted the use of Code 39 (First ANSI MH10.8M and MIL-STD-1189, later ANSI/AIM BC1), which was the first widely adopted bar code standard.  I can well remember the many requests for these documents when we first started the business!  And not surprisingly, DoD adoptance drove commercial usage.  Now there are a number of ISO/IEC standards, both for bar code symbology and for bar code scanner quality control and verification (listed below).

Mr. Woodland himself remained a fan of the bar code and was noted for wearing a tee-shirt with a large bar code on the front.  He was delighted with the wide-spread adoption of the bar code into uses that he would have never thought of at the time he originally conceived of the idea, as when he donated blood and was surprised that the container was identified with a bar code.

As we can see, this story follows the normal progress of an idea into practical usage — and with widespread adoption, into standardization.  Until Telecommunications and Information Technology started to affect the standards business in the 1980’s, this long roll-out of a technology into the “public domain” was routine.  Only in recent years have the requirements of commerce demanded a faster system to allow for standardization ahead of adoption.

And too I’m reminded of those many people that are involved in the development of things we often take for granted.  There’s many folks working in standards developing committees right now that are impacting the way our world works, knowing that their greatest source of satisfaction is going to be in those small moments when they see an implementation of their idea or standard at work!

Here’s your list of current ISO/IEC Bar Code Standards:

  • ISO/IEC 15417, Code 128 bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 15420, EAN/UPC bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 15424, Data Carrier Identifiers (including Symbology Identifiers)
  • ISO/IEC 15438, PDF417 bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 16022, Data Matrix bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 16023, MaxiCode
  • ISO/IEC 16388, Code 39 bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 16390, Interleaved 2 of 5 bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 18004, QR Code 2005 bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 24723, GS1 Composite bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 24724, GS1 DataBar bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 24728, MicroPDF417 bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 24778, Aztec Code bar code symbology specification
  • ISO/IEC 15415, Bar code symbol print quality test specification – Two-dimensional symbols
  • ISO/IEC 15416, Bar code print quality test specification — Linear symbols
  • ISO/IEC 15426-1, Bar code verifier conformance specification Part 1: Linear symbols
  • ISO/IEC 15426-2, Bar code verifier conformance specification Part 2: Two-dimensional symbols
  • ISO/IEC 29158, Direct Part Mark (DPM) Quality Guideline
  • in the U.S., ANSI/UCC5, Quality Specifications for UPC (Printed) Symbols

These standards can all be purchased on Document Center’s website, www.document-center.com.  Or contact us by phone (650-591-7600), fax (650-591-7617) or email (info@document-center.com).  We’ve been supporting the standards developing and using community since 1982, providing expert information in both standards and their usage.