TORONTO (April 13) — The International Standards Organization (ISO) said it would meet shortly to decide on whether to adopt a proposed 13.56 megahertz standard for “smart” labels, as suggested by Philips Semiconductors and Texas Instruments, vendors of the radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology.

Smart labels are fitted with RFID transponders which are small enough and produced cheaply enough to be laminated between paper or plastic layers, with the ability to store 256 bits of data for distribution-related applications, such as the identification of shipments or packages.

Need for a single international standard is obvious: the smart-label market could reach 1 billion units by 2003, one of the largest growth areas in the entire automatic identification market.

Philips and TI agreed last November to support a common RFID protocol. It would provide the first multi-vendor platform for vicinity card and smart label technology, and allow products from both companies to communicate at the same time with suitable reader/writer units.

Smart labels can be used to identify packages for express parcel services; airline baggage; valuable goods in retail, and to protect branded goods from product piracy.

This new technology contains read/write memory to store information related to the product, manufacturer, or logistics process. They can be simultaneously operated by read/write devices at a rate of more than 30 labels per second and, unlike barcodes, they do not require line-of-sight between the reader and label.