New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Today's crop of issuances include some watermarking related patents, two of which are noted here. Assigned to Microsoft, the first addresses stealthy secret key encoding and decoding. Assigned to Toshiba, the second describes was of using watermarking for controlling output of reproduced video data.
7,302,079, "Stealthy secret key encoding and decoding," assigned to Microsoft.
Abstract
An implementation is described herein facilitates certification of goods and/or identifications of the source of such goods. At least one implementation, described herein, embeds a watermark into a relatively small amount of data in a deterministic manner. At least one implementation, described herein, generates an authentication transformation matrix based, at least in part, upon an authentication watermark and a pre-defined humanly perceptible authentication pattern (e.g., image, audio). With this implementation, it obtains subject goods that may have the authentication watermark embedded therein. It generates a humanly perceptible resultant pattern (e.g., image, audio) based, at least in part, upon the watermark detected in subject goods and the transformation matrix. If the detected watermark is the authentication watermark, then the resultant pattern and the pre-defined authentication pattern will match (or nearly so). At least one implementation, described herein, hides a secret key around the periphery of watermarked goods. This abstract itself is not intended to limit the scope of this patent. The scope of the present invention is pointed out in the appending claims.
7,302,573, "Computer system and method for controlling output of reproduced video data," assigned to Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (JP).
Abstract
A computer system with a monitor display, comprises a decoder unit configured to decode video data containing digital watermark information to derive decoded data, and configured to determine, based on information included in the video data, whether or not first certification for certifying that the video data is legitimately reproduced data succeeds, and a graphics controller which determines, using the digital watermark information, whether or not second certification for certifying that the video data is to be protected from being copied succeeds, the graphics controller converting the decoded data into a protected decoded data from being copied and outputting the protected decoded data to the monitor display if the first certification and the second certification succeed, and the graphics controller inhibiting the decoded data from being output to the monitor display if the first certification fails and the second certification succeeds.
