SubGeneral

New U.S. Companion Animal Registry Makes Debut

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 27, 2004


As of the beginning of 2005, Schering Plough’s Home Again will operate its own companion animal registry. Home Again has until recently been closely associated with the AKC CAR (America Kennel Club Companion Animal Registry), which in the past received most of their new income-producing registrations from Home Again customers. In future Home Again customers will be supported by Schering Plough’s own database.

The United States are home to some 120 million companion animals. Major suppliers of microchips in the United States are: AVID, Schering Plough/Home Again and Trovan.

A recent effort to introduce the so-called ISO standard identification chip to the United States failed on several well-publicized legal and practical hurdles.

1. The ISO-type microchips cannot be detected by the installed reader base in the United States, which will detect only Home Again 125-KHz, AVID “encrypted” and Trovan 128-KHz chips. In at least one documented instance, pets identified with ISO chips have been euthanized because they were not detected by the readers in use in U.S. animal shelters, which were in many instances placed there by manufacturers at no cost to the shelter.

2. The ISO microchips and some compatible readers have been determined to be in conflict with intellectual property rights of third parties by U.S. courts, or are still being litigated.

3. The ISO 11784/85 standard is an open standard and does not assure unique ID codes (see The Controversial ISO 11784 / ISO 11785 Standard at rfidnews.com/index.htm).

The four microchip registries operating in the United States are:
1. AKC CAR 1-800-252-7894
2. InfoPet Identification Systems 1-800-463-0738
3. AVID PETTRAC 1-800-652-9977
4. Schering Plough 1-800-521-5767

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