The Cutting Edge: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : A Microchip for Muffy : Brand Rivalry Hampers Marketing of Device to Help Retrieve Lost Pets

If there is still any doubt that the ubiquitous microchip has permeated nearly every facet of life, consider the HomeAgain Companion Animal Retrieval System.

The HomeAgain system is based on a glass-encased microchip that is inserted via syringe into the scruff of a cat’s or dog’s neck. If the pet ever winds up in an animal shelter without visible identification, a simple swipe of a scanner could reveal the pet’s identity and hasten a safe return to its owner.

HomeAgain was launched in May by the animal health division of Madison, N.J.-based pharmaceutical giant Schering-Plough Corp. The company even enlisted television actress Stefanie Powers as its national celebrity spokeswoman as part of a splashy promotion.

The concept of scanning a pet like so many groceries is seductively simple and more than a little scary to those who view technology as a threat to individual liberty. (If pet-scanning is here today, can people-scanning be far behind?)

But the slow development of the chip-in-a-pet idea also shows how hard it can be to introduce a novel new technology to a realm as distinctly low-tech as pet ownership--and how seemingly pointless battles over technical standards can hinder acceptance of new ideas. AVID Corp.--short for American Veterinary Identification Devices--of Norco, Calif., first started selling microchips for pets in the mid-1980s, but the devices are still largely unknown to the tens of millions of pet owners in the United States.

While the three industry leaders--Schering-Plough, AVID and InfoPet Identification Systems of Burnsville, Minn.--together boast about 2 million furry customers, they account for less than 5% of the potential market.

The biggest problem is that each company’s microchip can be read only by its own scanner, which may or may not be on hand at the particular animal shelter where a lost pet turns up. Even if an appropriate scanner is available, overburdened shelter staffers sometimes don’t have time to scan all the animals that wind up in their custody.

“When the chips first came out, the technology was hailed as the savior of lost pets and the solution to all identification problems,” said Madeline Bernstein, executive director of the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which operates two shelters in the county. “That could be true if every single pet had a chip, and every shelter had a scanner and the time to use it, and every scanner could read every chip.”

For about $50, a concerned pet owner can buy a microchip and a lifetime registration on a database that links the animal’s nine- or 10-digit identification number to the name, phone number and address of the owner. (Medical information, such as allergies and the date of the animal’s last rabies shot, is sometimes included as well.) The chips can be easily--and veterinarians say painlessly--implanted in a vet’s office or an animal shelter.

AVID, which has sold about 1.2 million microchips for pets, receives more than 100 calls a day from finders of lost animals seeking to reunite them with their owners, said Mark Hawley, a sales and marketing manager for AVID. The company has documented between 17,000 and 20,000 recoveries so far, he said.

There is other evidence that the microchips are working, said Lindy Harten, western regional director for InfoPet. Before the Marin Humane Society began implanting cats with microchips, only 1% of strays were reunited with their owners. One year after the shelters instituted a chip program, the return rate rose to 2.5%. Now in its sixth year, the percentage of cats returned to their owners has jumped to 18%, she said.

The Ventura County Animal Regulation Department is in its third year of “microchipping” all cats and dogs adopted from county shelters, which totaled 3,400 last year, said Kathy Jenks, the department’s director in Camarillo.

“The more animals that are out there with IDs, the more we can return to owners,” Jenks said. The department reunites an average of three chip-implanted animals with their owners each day, compared with one pet a week among those without the chips, she said.

Microchip IDs were originally developed for expensive animals like racing horses and rare birds that would be hindered by bulky identification tags. The technology was later adapted for companion pets like dogs, cats and rabbits on the theory that a chip under the skin would be more secure than a tag around the neck.

The implant devices--all about the size of an uncooked grain of rice--contain a silicon microchip that stores an animal’s unique identification number, along with a copper coil that serves as an antenna. The units are encased in biocompatible glass cases and can be implanted in the scruff of an animal’s neck with one poke of a syringe.

The devices are based on radio frequency technology and are inert until a hair dryer-sized scanner is waved over the microchip, which responds by revealing a nine- or 10-digit identification number in milliseconds.

But the microchips can be read only by scanners manufactured by the same company, and some say the lack of a universal scanner is keeping pet owners from buying the products.

“Until a scanner comes out that can read any chip, the consumer is getting the short end because the consumer has to make sure they’re dealing with a chip that can be read in their particular location,” Bernstein said.

All three chip sellers agree on the need for a universal scanner. They have been negotiating through the Pittsburgh-based trade group Automated Identification Manufacturers and have agreed that a universal scanner should read a microchip from 4 inches away within 10 seconds.

“It is technologically possible to build,” said Keith Myhre, InfoPet’s vice president of business development. “But every company in the industry holds different patents.”

The companies have been meeting since February 1993, and an agreement on a common scanner standard is probably another 12 to 18 months away, said Myhre, who described the pace of negotiations as “very fast.”

“I’m optimistic,” added Tom Battaglini, senior director of marketing for Schering-Plough Animal Health, who estimates that between 35 million and 40 million dogs and cats will be implanted with identification microchips in the next three years. “If we really want this to succeed as an industry, we have to get together.”