George Laurer | |
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| Born | George Joseph Laurer III (1925-09-23)September 23, 1925 Manhattan,New York City, U.S. |
| Died | December 5, 2019(2019-12-05) (aged 94) Wendell,North Carolina, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Maryland |
| Notable work | Universal Product Code |
George Joseph Laurer III (September 23, 1925 – December 5, 2019) was an American engineer forIBM atResearch Triangle Park inNorth Carolina. He published 20 bulletins, held 28 patents and developed theUniversal Product Code (UPC) in the early 1970s. He devised the coding and pattern used for the UPC, based onJoe Woodland's more general idea forbarcodes.
George Laurer was born on September 23, 1925, inNew York City. His family moved toBaltimore,Maryland, so his father, an electrical engineer, could work for theUnited States Navy.[1] Laurer recovered frompolio which he contracted as a teenager,[1] nonetheless, while in 11th grade, he was drafted into theU.S. Army duringWorld War II.[2] After being discharged from the military, he attendedtechnical school 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.[3] Laurer graduated from theA. James Clark School of Engineering at theUniversity of Maryland in 1951.[3][4] He was still interested in radio and kept up hisamateur radio licence.[2]
Laurer was a 36-year employee ofIBM until his retirement in June 1987.[5] He joined IBM in 1951 as a junior engineer.[1] By 1969, he had been promoted to senior engineer / scientist and moved to the company's offices inResearch Triangle Park inNorth Carolina.[1][3]
At IBM, Laurer was assigned the task of developingbarcodes for use in grocery stores.[2] Initially, IBM envisioned a circular bullseye pattern as proposed byJoe Woodland in 1940s.[6] 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[6] or 1972.[1] This change was accepted by IBM management and Laurer then worked with Woodland and mathematicianDavid Savir to develop and refine the details.[7] These included the addition of acheck digit to provideerror correction.[2] In 1973, the IBM proposal was accepted by the Symbol Selection committee of the Uniform Grocery Product Code Council,[2] a consortium of grocery store companies.[3][6]
TheUniversal Product Code has bit patterns at the beginning, middle and end of the barcode called "guard bars" and these have been interpreted as the digits 666.[8] When he first developed the code, Laurer noticed that the digit 6 appeared several times and that this might be interpreted as thenumber of the Beast, as his daughter was studying theBook of Revelation.[8] When the codes started to appear in stores, there were protests and anurban legend developed.[8] Laurer addressed this on his website:[9]
Laurer was the holder of 25 patents and authored 27 publishedTechnical 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.[3][5]
As of 2019, UPC barcodes were being scanned more than 6 billion times each day, according toGS1.[1]
Laurer lived inWendell, North Carolina until his death in December 2019.[10][11] His wife, Marilyn Slocum Laurer, died in 2013.[1] They had four children.[4]