EN
The road leading to the establishment of the UPC bar code standard, which initiated the development of a family of line codes is discussed. Based on the UPC code the structure of a bar code is presented together with the principles of its reading using a laser scanner. The structure of the EAN-13 code is characterised and its evolution towards a global standard, i.e. the GS1 system, currently predominant in logistics is shown. The area of the GS1 system applications and the structure of the logistics label applied within this system are presented.