The History of Barcodes From Morse Code to UPC to QR Codes — How Lines and Squares Changed Global Commerce

In 1948, Norman Woodland, a graduate student at Drexel Institute, was inspired by Morse code to create a system for encoding product information. He extended the dots and dashes downward — creating the first barcode concept. The patent was filed in 1949 and granted in 1952. The first commercial barcode scan occurred on June 26, 1974: a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The pack of gum is now in the Smithsonian. The barcode is everywhere.

Today, approximately 6 billion barcodes are scanned every day — on products, packages, tickets, and documents. The barcode is the invisible infrastructure of global commerce. Here is the 70-year history.

1948-1974: From Concept to Commerce

Woodland's first barcode was a "bullseye" pattern — concentric circles. It was inspired by Morse code: narrow lines were dots, wide lines were dashes. The bullseye was functional but impractical — it required a complex scanner. The linear barcode (the familiar vertical lines) replaced it. The Universal Product Code (UPC) was adopted in 1973. The first scan in 1974 launched a revolution in inventory management, checkout speed, and supply chain visibility.

1974-Present: From Lines to Squares

The barcode encoded a 12-digit number. The QR code (1994) encoded thousands of characters — URLs, contact cards, WiFi passwords. The barcode was for commerce. The QR code was for consumers. The barcode scanner was a laser. The QR code scanner was a phone camera. The technology changed. The principle — encode information in a machine-readable pattern — remained the same. The barcode generator creates the codes that run the global supply chain. The QR code puts the same principle in every consumer's pocket. Seventy years after Norman Woodland drew lines in the sand, his idea is scanned 6 billion times a day.