On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new patent applications. Today's Spotlight Applications address aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to Philips, the first application discloses a renewable watermark for theatrical content. Assigned to Digimac, the second application discloses techniques for the authentication of physical and electronic media objects using digital watermarks.
Abstract
The present invention relates to a method for a content provider of renewing the watermarking of theatrical content and for updating consumer devices to detect said renewed watermark, wherein a watermark is embedded in said theatrical content using at least a first watermark noise pattern. Renewing is performed by said content provider distributing at least a second watermark noise pattern, which is used for embedding and detecting said watermark in said theatrical content, to said consumer devices using a broadcast encryption technology. The invention further relates to a content provider system adapted to be used for renewing the watermarking of theatrical content and for updating consumer devices to detect said renewed watermark.
20090067671, "Authentication of Physical and Electronic Media Objects Using Digital Watermarks," assigned to Digimarc.
Abstract
Digital watermark methods for encoding auxiliary data into a host signal are used to authenticate physical and electronic objects. One such method computes a content specific message dependent on the host signal, encodes the content specific message into a watermark signal, and embeds the watermark in the host signal such that the watermark signal is substantially imperceptible in the host signal. One specific implementation embeds data representing salient features of the host signal into the watermark. For example, for photo IDs, the method embeds the spatial location of salient features of the photo into the watermark. Another implementation computes a semi-sensitive hash of the host signal, such as a low pass filtering of the signal, and embeds the hash into the watermark. The watermark signal may be content dependent by making the watermark key dependent on some attribute of the signal in which the watermark is embedded. Another approach is to make the watermark key dependent on a user or an attribute of the user. Yet another approach is to use multiple watermark components and multiple watermark detection stages that help identify and screen out invalid watermark signals. Another digital watermarking method for authenticating a media object transforms a media signal to a frequency domain comprising an array of frequency coefficients. It selects a first set of frequency coefficients, and alters the selected first set of frequency coefficients so that values of the coefficients in the set correspond to a pattern. The pattern of the media signal is authenticated by comparing a pattern of the values of the frequency coefficients in the set with an expected pattern.
