QR codes are on restaurant tables, boarding passes, packaging and posters all over the world, so it is easy to forget that they were designed for a factory floor. The QR code was invented in Japan in the early 1990s to solve a very practical problem: reading more information, faster, than a traditional barcode allowed.
Here is who invented the QR code, why it was created, and how a tool for tracking car parts ended up in almost every phone camera.
The short answer
- The QR code was developed by a team led by engineer Masahiro Hara at Denso Wave, which at the time was a division of Denso Corporation, a Japanese automotive parts maker in the Toyota group.
- It was released in 1994.
- QR stands for Quick Response, because the main goal was fast reading.
- Denso Wave holds patents on the QR code but chose not to exercise them, so anyone can create and use QR codes for free. "QR Code" is a registered trademark of Denso Wave.
The problem: barcodes could not hold enough
By the early 1990s, barcodes were everywhere in shops and factories. But a standard one-dimensional barcode stores information in only one direction, and Denso Wave notes that a barcode can hold only about 20 alphanumeric characters. In manufacturing, companies wanted to label parts with much more information, and in Japan they also wanted to encode Kanji and Kana characters, not just Latin letters and numbers.
Denso Wave was developing barcode readers at the time, and customers asked whether a code could hold more.
A two-dimensional code stores data both across and up and down, so it can hold far more in the same space. Other 2D codes already existed, but Hara's goal was not only capacity. He wanted a code that could be read very quickly and reliably, from any angle.
How the finder patterns were designed
According to Denso Wave's own account of the project, Hara worked on it with just one other team member at first. The hardest challenge was speed: how could a scanner instantly find the code in an image and work out its orientation?
The answer was the three large squares in the corners, called position detection patterns or finder patterns. The team needed a shape that was unlikely to appear anywhere else on printed material, so a scanner would not be confused by other marks nearby. They surveyed a large amount of printed matter, such as flyers, magazines and cardboard boxes, and looked at the ratio of black and white areas. The ratio that appeared least often was 1:1:3:1:1, and that became the pattern of dark and light bands in each finder square.
Because a scanner can find that ratio from any direction, a QR code can be read at any rotation. That design is still at the heart of every QR code today. Our guide on how QR codes work explains what the finder patterns and the other parts of the code do.
After about a year and a half of development, the team had a code that Denso Wave says could hold roughly 7,000 digits and encode Kanji. Under today's standard, the largest QR code can hold up to 7,089 digits; see how much data a QR code can hold.
From car parts to industry
Denso Wave released the QR code in 1994. Its first major use was in the automotive industry, where it was used in production management and to track parts through manufacturing and shipping.
Use then spread to other industries that needed traceability, such as food, pharmaceuticals and contact lenses, where companies wanted to record detailed information about where products came from and how they were handled.
Why QR codes are free to use
One of the biggest reasons QR codes spread so widely is a business decision. Denso Wave made the QR code specification publicly available and, although it kept its patent rights, declared that it would not exercise them. According to the company, this policy was in place from the start, because the developers wanted as many people as possible to use the code.
That meant any company could build QR code generators, scanners and apps without paying license fees or worrying about legal disputes. This openness is a large part of why QR codes became a common standard instead of one of many competing formats.
The name "QR Code" is a registered trademark of Denso Wave, which is why you sometimes see a trademark note in documentation. The codes themselves are free to make and use, including with free tools like ours. See how to make a QR code for free.
Becoming an international standard
Standardization helped the QR code spread worldwide:
| Year | Milestone |
|---|
| 1994 | Denso Wave releases the QR code |
| 1997 | Approved as an AIM standard (automatic identification industry) |
| 1999 | Approved as a Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) |
| 2000 | Approved as an international standard, ISO/IEC 18004 |
Once the format was an international standard, manufacturers of scanners and software everywhere could support it with confidence that codes would work the same way.
How QR codes reached everyday phones
In Japan, QR codes became familiar to the general public in the early 2000s. Denso Wave dates widespread public use to 2002, when mobile phones with built-in QR code reading went on sale. People could scan a code to open a website or get a coupon instead of typing an address on a phone keypad.
In much of the rest of the world, QR codes took longer to catch on, partly because people needed to install a separate scanning app. That changed as smartphone makers built scanning into the camera. Apple added QR code scanning to the iPhone's built-in Camera app with iOS 11 in 2017, and many Android phones now scan codes from the camera or Google Lens. Today you can usually just point your camera at a code. See our guides for iPhone and Android.
Contactless menus, payments and tickets then made QR codes part of daily life in many countries.
Variants of the QR code
Denso Wave has also developed variations for specific needs:
- Micro QR Code: a smaller version with a single finder pattern, for very small spaces. It became a JIS standard in 2004.
- iQR Code: released in 2008, it can be rectangular and holds more data in a smaller area.
- SQRC: a QR code with a reading restriction, so some of its data can only be read by authorized scanners.
- Frame QR: introduced in 2014, with a free area in the middle for an image or illustration.
For everyday uses such as links, WiFi and contact cards, the standard QR code is still what almost everyone uses.
Recognition for the inventors
In 2014, Masahiro Hara and the QR code development team from Denso Wave and Toyota Central R&D Labs received the Popular Prize at the European Inventor Award, presented by the European Patent Office and chosen by public vote. In 2012, the QR code had also received a Good Design Award in Japan.
Frequently asked questions
Who invented the QR code?
The QR code was developed by a team led by Masahiro Hara at Denso Wave, then a division of Japan's Denso Corporation. It was released in 1994.
Why was the QR code invented?
To track automotive parts in manufacturing. Barcodes could not hold enough information, so Denso Wave created a two-dimensional code that held much more data and could be read very quickly from any angle.
What does QR stand for?
QR stands for Quick Response, reflecting the goal of fast reading.
Do you have to pay to use QR codes?
No. Denso Wave holds patents but has said it will not exercise them, and the specification is public. Anyone can create and use QR codes for free.
When did QR codes become popular?
They became common with the public in Japan in the early 2000s, when phones with built-in QR readers appeared. They spread more widely around the world once smartphones could scan codes directly from the camera app.
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