Automatic identification
Masahiro Hara: inventions and patents
Known for QR codeNationality Studied at Hosei University and worked at Denso in JapanBorn August 1957
Masahiro Hara, born in August 1957, joined Nippon Denso in 1980 after graduating in electrical and electronic engineering from Hosei University. He led the team at Denso Wave, then a division of Denso Corporation, that released the QR code in 1994, developed to track parts in car manufacturing, according to the European Patent Office. He is the first named inventor on US Patent 5,726,435 for an optically readable two-dimensional code, assigned to Nippondenso and Toyota Central R&D Labs. The development team received the Popular Prize at the 2014 European Inventor Award.4,1,2,3
Patents
US 5,726,4352Optically readable two-dimensional code and method and apparatus using the same
- Filed
- 14 March 1995
- Granted
- 10 March 1998
- Assignee
- NipponDenso Co Ltd, Toyota Central R&D Labs Inc
- Co-inventors
- Motoaki Watabe, Tadao Nojiri, Takayuki Nagaya, Yuji Uchiyama
View the patent document
Inventions
- QR code, 1994. A two-dimensional matrix code which the EPO says can be read about 20 times faster than previous matrix codes.1,3
Recognition
- 2014 European Inventor Award, Popular Prize (with the QR code development team)3,1
- C&C Prize (QR Code Team, with Motoaki Watabe, Takahiro Kurobe and Hiromitsu Takai)4
Sources
- European Patent Office, The QR code, European Inventor Award 2014 finalists (accessed 2026-10-27)
- Google Patents, US5726435A Optically readable two-dimensional code (accessed 2026-10-27)
- DENSO, QR Code Development Team Becomes First Japanese Winner of European Inventor Award (17 June 2014)
- NEC C&C Foundation (published by NEC), C&C Prize citation and achievements, QR Code Team, DENSO WAVE (2025-10 (from URL path))