Han Xin code

Han Xin code (汉信码 in Chinese, Chinese-sensible code) is two-dimensional (2D) matrix barcode symbology invented in 2007 by Chinese company The Article Numbering Center of China (中国物品编码中心 in Chinese) to break the monopoly of QR code. As a QR code, Han Xin code consists of black squares and white square spaces arranged in a square grid on a white background. It has four finder patterns and other markers which allow to recognize it with camera-based readers. Han Xin code contains Reed–Solomon error correction with ability to read corrupted images. At this time, it is issued as ISO/IEC 20830:2021.

The main advantage (and invention requirement), comparable to QR code, is an embedded ability to natively encode Chinese characters instead of Japanese in QR code. Han Xin code in maximal 84 version (189×189 size) allows to encode 7827 numeric characters, 4350 English text characters, 3261 bytes and 1044–2174 Chinese characters (it depends on Unicode region). Han Xin code encodes full ISO/IEC 646 Latin characters instead of restricted amount Latin characters which is supported by QR code. It makes Han Xin code more suitable for English text encoding or GS1 Application Identifiers data encoding.

Additionally, Han Xin code can encode Unicode characters from other languages with special Unicode mode, which has embedded lossless compression for UTF-8 characters set and Extended Channel Interpretation support. Han Xin code has special compactification mode for URI encoding and can reduce barcode size which encodes links to web pages.

The Article Numbering Center of China (中国物品编码中心 in Chinese) started research during the 10th Five-year plans of China of a home-grown QR code replacement to replace QR codes, which were considered a Japanese monopoly in 2D barcodes. In 2007, the new barcodes standard, at this time known as Han Xin code, was published as GB/T 21049-2007 with the name Chinese-sensible code.

In 2011, USA company Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility (AIM) brought out ISS Han Xin Code symbology as official encoding standard and published it in the own store.

In 2015, the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 31 group started implementation of Han Xin code as an international standard and published it as ISO/IEC 20830:2021 in 2021.

In 2022, the Chinese-sensible code standard was reviewed as GB/T 21049-2022 and renamed as Han Xin code to be compliant with ISO standard.

The following patents relating to Han Xin code encoding and decoding are registered in Europe and the United States: