DUPLICATE- DO NOT PUBLISH - US inventor of bar code dies at 91

NEW YORK (AFP) - N. Joseph Woodland, inventor of the now ubiquitous bar code that revolutionised retail, has died at the age of 91, US media reported on Friday.

Woodland came up with the zebra-like pattern used to store information as he drew lines in the sand on a Miami beach 64 years ago, his daughter, Susan Woodland, told the Record, a New Jersey newspaper.

He and partner Bernard Silver, who died in the 1960s, patented the idea in 1952 and sold it to Philco, an electronics company, for $15,000, she said.

Woodland was a mechanical engineer and worked for IBM for some 35 years, retiring in 1987. He was also part of a team that developed a laser scanner capable of reading bar codes in the 1970s, transforming the way Americans shop.