A Japanese engineer invented something you scan almost every day, then gave it away for free. In 1994, Masahiro Hara and his small team at Denso, an auto-parts company in Japan, built the QR code. The idea came from the black and white stones of a Go board. Here is the part most people don’t know: Denso held the patent. They could have charged the world for every single scan. They chose not to. They kept the standard open, for free, forever. That one decision is why QR codes are now on menus, tickets, and payments on every continent. A gift from Japan that we all use and never paid for.