Managing Rights Management

ETRI and Microsoft DRM Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications address aspects of DRM. Assigned to the Electronics And Telecommunications Research Institute (KR), the first application discloses techniques relating to interoperability and DRM. Assigned to Microsoft, the second application discloses techniques for identifying DRM licenses.

LG And Microsoft DRM Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO publishes new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents address aspects of DRM. Assigned to LG Electronics, the first patent concerns techniques for processing digital rights management contents containing advertising contents. Assigned to Microsoft, the second patent concerns techniques for software application protection by way of a digital rights management.

Two Digital Watermarking Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Digital watermarking continues to be a hot topic. Assigned to Dolby, the first Spotlight Application discloses techniques for detecting unauthorized content usage. The second application discloses for inserting/extracting nonblind watermark using features of digital media data, no assignee given.

Two Digital Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Digital watermarking continues to be a hot topic. Assigned to the Fraunhofer Institute (DE), the first of today's Spotlight Patents concerns techniques for embedding watermarks. Assigned to the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (KR), the second patent concerns techniques for using watermarks for controlling storage and playback of digital broadcasting contents.

Two Samsung DRM Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications address aspects of DRM and both are assigned to Samsung (KR). The first application discloses techniques for using Secure Removable Media (SRM) in DRM. The second application discloses techniques for using contents information in digital rights management.

Cisco and NTT Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to Cisco, the first patent addresses techniques for watermarking a media stream using coded macroblock types. Assigned to NTT (JP), the second patent addresses techniques for embedding and for detecting digital watermarks.

Digital Watermarking and DIgital Fingerprinting Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Today's Spotlight Applications concern aspects of digital watermarking and digital fingerprinting. The first application discloses techniques for marking a digital image with a digital watermark, assigned to TREDESS 2010 (ES). The second application discloses techniques for content-based matching of videos using local spatio-temporal fingerprints," no assignee given.

IBM and Boeing Digital Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to IBM, the first patent addresses data watermarks created by using an uneven sampling period. Assigned to Boeing, the second patent addresses techniques for digital watermarking of picture identity documents using Eigenface vectors of Eigenface facial features of the document facial image as the watermark key.

DIsney and Chi Mei Communication Systems DRM Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications concern aspects of Digital Rights Management. Assigned to Disney, the first application discloses techniques for trust based digital rights management systems. Assigned to Chi Mei Communication Systems (TW), the second application discloses techniques for accessing DRM files and non-DRM files in a mobile device.

Two Digital Watermarking Patents From Scott Moskowitz

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents address aspects of digital watermarking and both have Scott Moskowitz as an inventor (hi Scott). The first patent addresses techniques for utilizing data reduction in steganographic and cryptographic systems. The second patent addresses optimization methods for the insertion, protection and detection of digital watermarks in digital data.

ContentGuard and Mitsubishi Digital Watermarking Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to ContentGuard Holdings,the first application discloses techniques for controlling the distribution and use of rendered digital works through watermarking. Assigned to Mitsubishi Electric (JP), the second application discloses techniques for assessing and protecting digital content at least in part using watermarks.

Sample Digital and Sony Issued DRM Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of DRM. Assigned to Sample Digital Holdings, the first patent addresses using DRM for media content collaboration throughout a media production process. Assigned to Sony (JP), the second patent addresses techniques for controlling distribution of content to network devices.

Thomson Watermarking and Intel Fingerprinting Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications.Today's Spotlight Applications concern aspects of digital fingerprinting and digital watermarking, which continue to be "hot topics." Assigned to Thomson, the first application discloses techniques for recovering watermarking information from a bitstream. Assigned to Intel, the second application discloses techniques for using a content fingerprint filter.

Three Digimarc Digital Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Several digital watermarking patents issued today, including three from Digimarc. The first of today's Spotlight Patents concerns watermark orientation signals conveying payload data. The second concerns techniques for processing text found in images. The third concerns techniques for watermark encoding and decoding.

SanDisk and Huawei DRM Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications concerns aspects of DRM. Apparently assigned to SanDisk, the first application discloses techniques for improving accuracy of a time estimate used in digital rights management (DRM) license validation.

IBM Fingerprinting and Digimarc Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO publishes new patents. Today's Spotlight Patents address aspects of digital fingerprinting and watermarking. Assigned to IBM, the first patent concerns the use of fingerprinting in tracing and identifying piracy in wireless digital rights management system. Assigned to Digimarc, the second patent concerns techniques using watermarking for monitoring internet dissemination of image, video, and/or audio files.

Nokia and Embarq DRM Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications concern aspects of DRM. Assigned to Nokia, the first application discloses techniques for distributing service information and digital rights for broadcast data. Assigned ti Embarq Holdings, the second application discloses techniques for providing wireless security surveillance services accessible via a telecommunications device.

BayTSP Fingerprinting and Digimarc Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Today's Spotlight Patents address aspects of digital fingerprinting and watermarking. Assigned to BayTSP.com, the first patent concerns techniques for managing, reviewing, comparing and detecting data on a wide area network. Assigned to Digimarc, the second patent concerns techniques for digital watermarking compressed video captured from aerial sensors.

CES 2010: DRM Is Alive And Well - Part 1

The 2010 Consumer Electronics Show was very upbeat, perhaps more so than two years ago (last year doesn't count given the economic implosion resulting in widespread malaise and depression). Of course the purpose of the these shows is to drum up excitement. 3D TV (not quite ready for prime time in my view, but I did not spend much time looking), Mobile, and Auto seemed to be the principal sectors leading the charge.

Having seen a lot of the show (at the expense of my feet), one conclusion is that rights management, broadly construed, is everywhere. In saying this, I'm taking a very expansive view of rights management to include both technical and non-technical--largely business model factors--means of protecting digital content. I'm excluding from consideration music CDs and related issues since there does not seem to be a good solution specific to the CD problem that is acceptable to privacy and consumer advocates.

In giving a few selected examples of how rights management is being further insinuated into services and business models, I'm leaving out many vendors (apologies to those not mentioned). I'm sure that critics will be able to find counter examples  My goal here is simply to identify trends.

Various parties with DRM and related solutions were at the show, including Irdeto and Digital Containers. HDMI Licensing had a booth as well. Metadata company Gracenote had a  booth that also highlighted customer applications. Executives from Widevine were in town but did not have a booth.

Media futurist Gerd Leonhard (among others) have long argued that the future of media is and should be streaming rather than downloading files. The 2010 CES makes it perfectly clear that the world is moving substantially toward media streaming. More in the next installment. 

Digimarc and IBM Digital Watermarking Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications concern aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to Digimarc, the first application discloses techniques for using watermarks with images or video. Assigned to IBM, the second application discloses techniques for generating a watermark signal.

Two Digital Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO publishes new patents. Digital watermarking continues to be a hot topic. Two more patents assigned to Wisteria Trading (Scott Moskovitz) issued today (7,647,502 and 7,647,503). The first of today's Spotlight Patents concerns character and vector graphics watermark for structured electronic documents security, assigned to the University of Geneva (CH). Toshiba also had two watermarking patents issued (7,646,882 and 7,646,883), the abstract for the first is below.

ContentGuard and Wisteria Digital Watermarking Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications address various aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to ContentGuard, the first application discloses multi-stage techniques for watermarking. Assigned to Wisteria Trading (Scott Moskovitz {hi Scott}), the second application discloses techniques for optimizing the insertion, protection, and detection of digital watermarks in digital data.

DECE Moving Toward "buy once, play anywhere" Deployment

Many outlets including New York Times and Variety highlight progress by the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, a broad consortium of companies implementing a cloud-based "buy once, play anywhere" content distribution strategy .

DECE has tapped Virginia-based Neustar to operate that digital locker. It's also approved Adobe Flash Access, CMLA-OMA V2, the Marlin DRM Open Standard, Microsoft PlayReady and Widevine as the five digital rights management formats that can protect the files stored in the locker.

Apple and Disney remain holdouts.

Widevine and Motorola Issued DRM Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents address various aspects of DRM. Assigned to Widevine, the first patent concerns techniques for securely providing content viewable on a secure device. Assigned to Motorola, the second patent concerns techniques for for recording and editing digital broadcast content.

Two DRM Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications concern aspects of DRM. Assigned to ConDel, the first application discloses techniques for performing interoperable digital rights management among different operating system platforms. The second application discloses techniques for copyright detection and protection, no assignee given.

LG Electronics and Microsoft DRM Issued Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of DRM. Assigned to LG Electronics (KR), the first patent concerns a mobile device for preventing illegal distribution of digital data contents. Assigned to Microsoft, the second patent concerns a digital rights management scheme for an on-demand distributed streaming system.

Microsoft and Toshiba Digital Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern digital watermarking. Assigned to Microsoft, the first patent addresses techniques for the derivation and quantization of robust non-local characteristics for blind watermarking. Assigned to Toshiba (JP), the second patent addresses digital watermarking techniques.

Two Digital Fingerprinting Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new patent applications.Both of today's Spotlight Applications concern the use of digital fingerprinting. Assigned to TECsys Development, the first application discloses techniques for using metadata fingerprint analysis for monitoring, alerting, and remediation. The second application discloses techniques using digital fingerprints for managing, reviewing, comparing and detecting data on a wide area network, no assignee given.

Panasonic and Microsoft DRM Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents deal with aspects of DRM. Assigned to Panasonic, the first patent concerns techniques for content distribution management. Assigned to Microsoft, the second patent concerns a secure server plug-in architecture for digital rights management systems.

Thomson and Alcatel-Lucent Digital Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Digital watermarking continues to be a hot topic. Yesterday, two patents dealing with applications of digital watermarking were each issued to Thomson (7,630,511, 7,631,358) and to Alcatel-Lucent (7,630,512, 7,630,509). Issued to Thomson, the first of today's Spotlight Patents concerns techniques for improving the detection of watermarks in content that has undergone a lossy transformation. Assigned to Alcatel-Lucent, the second patent concerns techniques for performing recoverable video and image watermarking which survives block-based video and image compression.