In 1911, F.A. Putnam founded MARKEM to develop inks that would effectively adhere to shoe leather to mark lots, sizes, and SKU numbers. His inks soon became the industry favorite, and as MARKEM's reputation quickly grew, other industries asked for solutions to their product marking challenges. By the middle of the twentieth century, MARKEM had revolutionized the electronics industry by developing inks and machines to mark on radio tubes, and had also forever changed the face of textile and apparel with the world's first wash-proof cloth marking labels.

In 2002, as part of its advanced product  development MARKEM began working with the MIT Auto-ID Center on RFID and electronic product code (EPC) development.