Among the fits and starts that has characterized progress in most areas of the RFID market, the industry researchers at RW Baird & Co., an investment firm, have identified what they see as the three largest issues to more widespread adoption of the technology.

In the May issue of the company’s RFID Monthly newsletter, which tracks industry trends and technology developments, Baird identified the following three barriers as the highest obstacles to more rapid deployment:

1. The ability to share data across a common platform among trading partners, and the ability to generate standards that allows public data to be properly shared and proprietary data to remain private.

2. Privacy and regulation, which could lessen the capability of the technology if enacted in a restrictive way.

3. International standardization - trade has obviously become truly global, and though much progress has been made, there is still work to be done in terms of standardization. “Failure to achieve such standardization will diminish the value of the technology,” the Baird researchers write. “Recall, China viewed Gen 2 as proprietary until it was adopted by ISO, and China originates roughly 70% of U.S. consumer goods. U.S. consumer product companies would see substantially greater value with China using Gen 2 technology,” due to the ability to source tag.

Issue number 2, on privacy and regulation, is a real unknown, with the potential for literally all 50 U.S. states and countless international jurisdictions to potentially craft their own rules.  In April, for example, Washington state passed an RFID law that, in its final form, was viewed as mostly friendly to RFID technology – but that was only after a number of much more restrictive provisions were stripped from the final legislation.