Origin of the Quick Response Code

The operational problem

By the early 1990s, Japanese automotive component tracking made extensive use of one-dimensional barcodes. The symbology carried only a limited payload — typically twenty alphanumeric characters per label — and required precise alignment between scanner and label along a single axis. As the number of components per assembly increased, plant operators routinely affixed multiple barcodes to the same component, which slowed scanning and increased error rates.

The development effort

Denso Wave, a subsidiary of the Denso Corporation focused on auto-ID technology, formed a small engineering team to develop a successor symbology. The team was led by Masahiro Hara. The objective was a symbology that could (a) carry a substantially larger payload in a smaller printed footprint, (b) be located and decoded independent of orientation, and (c) recover from moderate physical damage, smudging, or partial occlusion typical of factory conditions.

Public release

The Quick Response Code was released publicly in 1994. Denso Wave elected not to assert patent rights against use of the symbology, a decision that permitted the symbology to be adopted without licensing encumbrance and subsequently to be codified as a national and international standard.