Digimarc Demonstrates Support For New GS1 Digital Link Standard

Growing portfolio of Digimarc Barcode benefits now includes support for new GS1 Digital Link standard to provide consumers with greater data accuracy and transparency

Beaverton, OR /PRNewswire/ - Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC), inventor of the Intuitive Computing Platform (ICP™) featuring Digimarc Barcode, announced today it has incorporated the GS1 Digital Linkstandard for mobile web lookup of product information into Digimarc Barcode and the supporting data platform. This adds to the already considerable benefits of Digimarc Barcode, including detection at point-of-sale from barcode scanner devices.

New Seasons Market, a West Coast neighborhood grocer, is deploying Digimarc Barcode for Packaging and Digimarc Barcode for Thermal Labels to enable a faster and more accurate checkout experience. With Digimarc Barcode, enhanced for GS1 Digital Link, New Seasons now has the ability to encode the Global Trade Item Number® (GTIN®), plus the lot number and other standard identifiers. Digimarc Barcode now can provide web connections for consumers according to the standard and also be leveraged for product transparency initiatives, including SmartLabel® and the recently adopted Bioengineered Food Standard for disclosing GMOs. The same Digimarc Barcode, repeated many times across a package for reliability and efficiency, can also be used for improving inventory management, product traceability and manufacturing inspection solutions.

"Retailers across the globe are under pressure to adapt and make significant technology upgrades to address evolving consumer expectations for robust product information and transparency," said Bob Carpenter, president and CEO, GS1 US. "GS1 Digital Link seeks to address that need by providing a digitally-enabled unique identifier along with brand authorized product information to accurately inform consumer purchase decisions via product packaging."

GS1 Digital Link specifies a standard format for a web URL, GS1 GTIN and several GS1 application identifiers into one single URL with a standardized syntax. This initiative helps to support many types of business-to-business and business-to-consumer information needs.

"Adding GS1 Digital Link capability within the barcode removes the need for secondary marks such as QR codes, thereby freeing-up valuable packaging real estate for additional product and brand information," said Nick Tabet, vice-president of Fixed Retail Scanning, Datalogic. "With this development, it's now possible for a single visually imperceptible code—Digimarc Barcode—to provide all the benefits currently associated with multiple code implementations."

"Digimarc has a long history of collaboration with GS1 and is participating in the GS1 Digital Link Working Group today," said Tony Rodriguez, CTO, Digimarc. "We are committed to working with the industry to enhance shopping experiences and retail operations around the world. By adding the GS1 Digital Link standard, Digimarc Barcode is the only machine-readable symbology that supports existing point-of-sale barcode scanners at a global scale and provides the granularity needed to enable transparency and consumer engagement, including through SmartLabel®, track-and-trace operations and other use cases where identification is critical."

Digimarc Barcode is a visually imperceptible barcode that can carry both numeric and alphanumeric data using GS1 identification standards for product packaging, retail labels, Point-of-Purchase displays and other print material. Use of Digimarc Barcode allows companies to protect their brand, track products from origin-to-destination, provide personalized content and coupons, and provide end-to-end serialization. Consumers benefit from faster and more convenient checkout options, and in-aisle access to detailed product information including, for example, discounts and price matching while they are inside the physical store. Retailers benefit from Digimarc Barcode through more efficient front-of-store operations, improved inventory accuracy, reduced product shrink and greater marketing options.

About Digimarc
Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC) is a pioneer in the automatic identification of everyday objects such as product packaging and virtually any media, including print, images and audio. Based on the patented Intuitive Computing Platform (ICP™), Digimarc provides innovative and comprehensive automatic recognition technologies to simplify search, and transform information discovery through unparalleled reliability, efficiency and security. Digimarc has a global patent portfolio, which includes over 1,100 granted and pending patents. These innovations include state-of-the-art identification technology, Digimarc Barcode, as well as Digimarc Discover® software for barcode scanning, image recognition, and more. Digimarc is based in Beaverton, Oregon, with technologies deployed by major retailers and consumer brands, global banks, U.S. states, film companies and professional sports franchises, among others. Visit digimarc.com and follow us @digimarc to learn more about The Barcode of Everything®.