Editing Radio-frequency identification (section)

===EPC Gen2===
EPC Gen2 is short for ''EPCglobal UHF Class 1 Generation 2''.

EPCglobal, a joint venture between [[GS1]] and GS1 US, is working on international standards for the use of mostly passive RFID and the [[Electronic Product Code]] (EPC) in the identification of many items in the [[supply chain]] for companies worldwide.

One of the missions of EPCglobal was to simplify the Babel of protocols prevalent in the RFID world in the 1990s. Two tag air interfaces (the protocol for exchanging information between a tag and a reader) were defined (but not ratified) by EPCglobal prior to 2003. These protocols, commonly known as Class 0 and Class 1, saw significant commercial implementation in 2002–2005.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://rfid4u.com/rfid-basics-resources/how-to-select-a-correct-rfid-tag-standards-mandates/|title = RFID Standards and Mandates}}</ref>

In 2004, the Hardware Action Group created a new protocol, the Class 1 Generation 2 interface, which addressed a number of problems that had been experienced with Class 0 and Class 1 tags. The EPC Gen2 standard was approved in December 2004. This was approved after a contention from [[Intermec]] that the standard may infringe a number of their RFID-related patents. It was decided that the standard itself does not infringe their patents, making the standard royalty free.<ref>{{Cite news|first=Mark|last=Roberti|url=http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/1293|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081122130824/http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/1293|archive-date=November 22, 2008|title= EPCglobal Ratifies Gen 2 Standard|publisher=RFID Journal|date=2004-12-16|access-date = 2011-07-07}}</ref> The EPC Gen2 standard was adopted with minor modifications as ISO 18000-6C in 2006.<ref>{{Cite news|first=Mary|last=Catherine O'Connor|url=http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/2481/1/1|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080128111939/http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/2481/1/1|archive-date=January 28, 2008|title= Gen 2 EPC Protocol Approved as ISO 18000-6C|publisher=RFID Journal|date=2004-07-12|access-date = 2011-07-07}}</ref>

In 2007, the lowest cost of Gen2 EPC inlay was offered by the now-defunct company SmartCode, at a price of $0.05 apiece in volumes of 100 million or more.<ref>{{Cite news|first=Mark|last=Roberti|url=http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/2295/1/128/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060819212628/http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/2295/1/128/|archive-date=August 19, 2006|title= A 5-Cent Breakthrough|publisher=RFID Journal|date=2006-05-06|access-date = 2007-01-26}}</ref>