Bernard Silver

Bernard Silver (September 21, 1924 – August 28, 1963) was an early developer of barcode technology alongside Norman Joseph Woodland.

Silver earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Drexel Institute of Technology in 1947. In 1948 Silver paired with Norman Joseph Woodland to come up with an automated way to read product data after overhearing the conversation of a local grocery store president. Their initial results, a system of lines and circles based on Morse code, was replaced with a bulls eye pattern so it could be scanned from any direction. Silver and Woodland filed a patent for their system on October 20, 1949. U.S. Patent 2,612,994 was granted on October 7, 1952. "The two men eventually sold their patent to Philco for $15,000 — all they ever made from their invention."

During his career Silver served as a physics instructor at Drexel and as vice-president of Electro Nite Inc. He died August 28, 1963 of bronchopneumonia due to acute myelogenous leukemia at the age of 38. In 2011 Silver, alongside Woodland, was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.