条形码设备制造商和条形码技术用户需要公开的标准符号规范，在开发设备和软件时可以参考这些规范。 ISO/IEC 15420:2009规定了被称为EAN/UPC的条形码符号的要求。它规定了EAN/UPC符号特征、数据字符编码、尺寸、公差、解码算法和应用程序定义的参数。它为EAN/UPC符号指定符号标识符前缀字符串。 数据内容和管理该符号使用的规则不在ISO/IEC 15420:2009的范围内；它们在GS1通用规范中有定义。

Manufacturers of bar code equipment and users of bar code technology require publicly available standard symbology specifications to which they can refer when developing equipment and software. ISO/IEC 15420:2009 specifies the requirements for the bar code symbology known as EAN/UPC. It specifies EAN/UPC symbology characteristics, data character encodation, dimensions, tolerances, decoding algorithms and parameters to be defined by applications. It specifies the Symbology Identifier prefix strings for EAN/UPC symbols. Data content and the rules governing the use of this symbology are outside the scope of ISO/IEC 15420:2009; they are defined in the GS1 General Specifications.