France Telecom and InterDigital Watermarking Issued Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern the use of watermarking. Assigned to France Telecom, the first patent addresses techniques for watermarking a video signal.  Assigned to InterDigital, the second patent addresses the use of watermarking  for protecting and authenticating code division multiple access (CDMA) wirelessly transmitted digital information.

7,415,127, "System and method of watermarking a video signal and extracting the watermarking from a video signal," assigned to France Telecom.

Abstract

This method comprises the following steps of applying a watermarking function to motion vectors calculated by estimation of movement between images of a video signal, followed by a step of generating the watermarked video signal by compensating movement with the aid of the watermarked motion vectors. The watermarking function is applied by marking the coordinates of the selected motion vector in a reference space, certain portions of this space constituting a first zone and the other portions of this space constituting a second zone complementary to the first, assigning a binary value to each of the two zones, and, if necessary, modifying the coordinates of the selected motion vector so that it is in the zone whose binary value corresponds to a bit of a marking key associated with the selected motion vector.

7,415,043, "Code division multiple access (CDMA) method and apparatus for protecting and authenticating wirelessly transmitted digital information," assigned to InterDigital Technology Corporation.

Abstract

A spread spectrum method and apparatus for protecting and authenticating wirelessly transmitted digital information using numerous techniques. The apparatus may be a wireless code division multiple access (CDMA) communication system, a base station, a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU), a transmitter, a receiver and/or an integrated circuit (IC). The wireless CDMA communication system includes a transmitter which steganographically embeds digital information in a CDMA communication signal and wirelessly transmits the CDMA communication signal. The system further includes a receiver which receives the CDMA communication signal and extracts the steganographically embedded digital information from the received CDMA communication signal.