George Joseph Laurer III (September 23, 1925 – December 5, 2019) was an American engineer for IBM at

Research Triangle Park Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States, occupying in North Carolina and hosting more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. The facility is named for its location relative to the three surrounding cities ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...

. He published 20 bulletins, held 28 patents and developed the

Universal Product Code The Universal Product Code (UPC or UPC code) is a barcode symbology that is widely used worldwide for tracking trade items in stores. UPC (technically refers to UPC-A) consists of 12 digits that are uniquely assigned to each trade item. Along wi ...

(UPC) in the early 1970s. He devised the coding and pattern used for the UPC, based on Joe Woodland's more general idea for

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

Early life

George Laurer was born on September 23, 1925, in

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. His family moved to

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

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, so his father, an electrical engineer, could work for the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. Laurer recovered from

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe sy ...

which he contracted as a teenager, nonetheless, while in 11th grade, he was drafted into the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. After being discharged from the military, he attended

technical school In the United States, a technical school is a type of two-year college that covers specialized fields such as business, finance, hospitality, tourism, construction, engineering, visual arts, information technology and community work. Associa ...

where he studied radio and television repair. Upon completion of his first year at the technical school, his instructor convinced him that he should not continue that course of study, but that he should go to college. Laurer graduated from the

A. James Clark School of Engineering The A. James Clark School of Engineering is the engineering college of the University of Maryland, College Park. The school consists of fourteen buildings on the College Park campus that cover over . The school is near Washington, D.C. and Balti ...

at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

in 1951. He was still interested in radio and kept up his amateur radio licence.

Career

Laurer was a 36-year employee of IBM until his retirement in June 1987. He joined IBM in 1951 as a junior engineer. By 1969, he had been promoted to senior engineer / scientist and moved to the company's offices in

. At IBM, Laurer was assigned the task of developing

barcodes A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

for use in grocery stores. Initially, IBM envisioned a circular bullseye pattern as proposed by Joe Woodland in 1940s. Laurer realized that the pattern was ineffective because of smearing during printing. Instead, he designed a vertical pattern of stripes which he proposed to his superior in 1971 or 1972. This change was accepted by IBM management and Laurer then worked with Woodland and mathematician David Savir to develop and refine the details. These included the addition of a

check digit A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for error detection on identification numbers, such as bank account numbers, which are used in an application where they will at least sometimes be input manually. It is analogous to a binary parity ...

to provide error correction. In 1973, the IBM proposal was accepted by the Symbol Selection committee of the Uniform Grocery Product Code Council, a consortium of grocery store companies. The

has bit patterns at the beginning, middle and end of the barcode called "guard bars" and these have been interpreted as the digits 666. When he first developed the code, Laurer noticed that the digit 6 appeared several times and that this might be interpreted as the number of the Beast, as his daughter was studying the

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of ...

. When the codes started to appear in stores, there were protests and an

urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

developed. Laurer addressed this on his website: :Answer – Yes, they do RESEMBLE the code for a six. An even parity 6 is: :1 module wide black bar 1 module wide white space 1 module/ wide black bar 4 module wide white space. :There is nothing sinister about this nor does it have anything to do with the Bible's "mark of the beast" (The New Testament, The Revelation, Chapter 13, paragraph 18). It is simply a coincidence like the fact that my first, middle, and last name all have 6 letters. There is no connection with an international money code either.

Legacy

Laurer was the holder of 25 patents and authored 27 published Technical Disclosure Bulletins. In 1976, he was given the Raleigh Inventor of the Year Award. In 1980, he received the Corporate Technical Achievement award from IBM. As of 2019, UPC barcodes were being scanned more than 6 billion times each day, according to GS1.

Personal life

Laurer lived in

Wendell, North Carolina Wendell is a town in Wake County, North Carolina, United States. It is a satellite town of Raleigh, the state capital. The population was 5,845 at the 2010 census. History Incorporated in 1903, Wendell was settled in the 1850s, when farmers in ...

until his death in December 2019. His wife, Marilyn Slocum Laurer, died in 2013. They had four children.

Published journal articles

References

External links

*
Innovation Hall of Fame Inductees
Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland in 1991.
Alumni UMD Hall Of Fame Members
in 2000
How the barcode changed retailing
(2017)

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