Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital watermarking and digital fingerprinting. Assigned to Broadcom, the first patent addresses techniques for robust watermark insertion and extraction for digital set-top boxes. Assigned to Samsung, the second patent addresses techniques for generating audio fingerprint and retrieving audio data.
8,380,993, "Method and system for robust watermark insertion and extraction for digital set-top boxes," assigned to Broadcom.
Abstract
Methods and systems for robust watermark insertion and extraction for digital set-top boxes are disclosed and may include descrambling, detecting watermarking messages in a received video signal utilizing a watermark message parser, and immediately watermarking the descrambled video signal utilizing an embedded CPU. The embedded CPU may utilize code that may be signed by an authorized key, encrypted externally to the chip, decrypted, and stored in memory in a region off-limits to other processors. The video signal may be watermarked in a decompressed domain. The enabling of the watermarking may be verified utilizing a watchdog timer. The descriptors corresponding to the watermarking may be stored in memory that may be inaccessible by the main CPU. The watermark may comprise unique identifier data specific to the chip and a time stamp, and may be encrypted utilizing an on-chip combinatorial function.8,380,518, "Device, method, and medium for generating audio fingerprint and retrieving audio data," assigned to Samsung (KR).
Abstract
Provided are device, method, and medium for generating an audio fingerprint and retrieving audio data. The device for generating an audio fingerprint includes: a coefficient extracting section partially decoding audio data in a compression area and extracting MDCT (Modified Discrete Cosine Transform) coefficients; a coefficient selecting section selecting an MDCT coefficient robust to noises from the extracted MDCT coefficients; a modulation spectrum generating section transforming the selected MDCT coefficient by the use of a Fourier transform method and generating a modulation spectrum; and a bit conversion section quantizing the generated modulation spectrum and generating an audio fingerprint. As a result, it is possible to accurately and rapidly retrieve the audio data recorded in a variety of environments. Since elements based on MP3 are used, it is possible to apply to MP3 applications in various manners. In addition, it is possible to apply to classification of audio data such as classification of music moods and classification of music genres and various other fields such as extraction of a specific event from moving images of sports.

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