The Japanese proposed to charge China for the use of QR code. Who invented QR code
4hw.com.cn: Recently, Japanese media reported that some people in Japan said that the QR code was invented by the Japanese, and China should pay taxes to Japan. As soon as public opinion triggered a heated debate, who invented the QR code? Let's look at the past and present life of QR code.
Past and present life of QR code
The predecessor of QR code is bar code.
In 1949, barcode payment was born. Bar code can be regarded as a symbol of machine recognition, similar to people relying on words, numbers and so on to identify information. For the machine, it also needs an optical symbol that can be recognized, which is bar code.
On June 26, 1974, a day worthy of eternal history, a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, sold the world's first bar code printed commodity - Wrigley gum, which is still collected in the National Museum of the United States.
With the rapid popularity of bar codes in the 1970s and 1980s, large retailers are also introducing scanners, which can support customer databases and membership cards.
One of the most typical representatives is Wal Mart. By tracking and automating inventory, Wal Mart can make real-time delivery more attractive and reduce the cost of various products.
Through bar codes, logistically complex operations become easier. The final manifestation of this fact was that in 1988, Wal Mart, a discount department store, decided to introduce a bar code system to sell food.
Now, every day, bar codes are scanned 8 billion times. In China, for the whole chain of logistics and retail, bar code can save 300 billion yuan a year.
QR code is the 'upgraded version' of bar code. QR code is equivalent to stacking many bar codes layer by layer. It can store information in both horizontal and vertical directions, so it has more information capacity than bar code. There are 219 characters in the QR code, but the icon is very small, which realizes the goal of storing more information in a relatively small area.
When QR code was just launched, it did not get the attention of Japan. Although the inventor of the QR code applied for a patent at that time, he did not find the business opportunities contained in the QR code, so he voluntarily gave up the right to use it. The QR code was thus shelved.
Father of Chinese QR code
Unexpectedly, the huge market value of QR code was discovered by a Chinese, Wang Yue, the founder of Yirui start-up company.
In 2001, Wang Yue, 25, became a technical director of a Japanese software company. This is a great recognition in the Japanese workplace.
But before that, Wang Yue experienced a long disappointment and waiting. He didn't expect that after the software engineer came to Japan, he was sent to the factory, and the factory directly installed him in the warehouse. He was very unbalanced, 'I don't know when it's the head, no one recognizes it, no one can ask.'
After working in Japan for more than a year, Wang Yue decided to return to China to start a business after being exposed to QR code and thinking about it for 15 days.
In 2002, Wang Yue founded Yirui company and jointly developed the world's first mobile QR code engine with a group of outstanding engineers graduated from Peking University, Tsinghua University and Harbin Institute of technology; In 2003, it obtained the 'QR code fast reading engine' with completely independent intellectual property rights, and applied for the national patent of bar code reading method and device; In 2005, he participated in the establishment of Chinese QR code standard and has become the international standard of ISO.
Nowadays, QR code payment has deeply affected all aspects of Chinese life. According to public data, the market scale of China's mobile payment reached US $5.5 trillion in 2016; In addition, according to the data of Forrester Research, the scale of mobile payment in the United States in 2016 was only $112 billion. The financial times believes that 'China's success in the new economy and cutting-edge technology gives the Chinese people reason to be proud'.