Managing Rights Management

Two DRM Patent Applications From Seagate

On Thursday's the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications concern aspects of DRM and both are assigned to Seagate Technologies. The first application discloses techniques for anchor point-based digital content protection with an escrow anchor point. The second application discloses techniques for posted move in... Read more →

Kaleidescape Fingerprinting and Digimarc Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Digital watermarking and fingerprinting continue to be relatively hot topics. Assigned to Kaleidescape, the first of today's Spotlight Patents concerns parallel distribution and fingerprinting of digital content. Assigned to Digimarc, the second patent concerns digital watermarking of low bit rate video. 7,568,105, "Parallel... Read more →

Vanishing Act

The NYTimes article on reports on the work of University of Washington computer scientists on "self-destructing messages." Vanish uses a key-based encryption system in a different way, making it possible for a decrypted message to be automatically re-encrypted at a specified point in the future without fear that a third... Read more →

AT&T and Thomson Digital Watermarking Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications address aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to AT&T, the first application discloses techniques for retrieving a watermark within a signal. Assigned to Thomson, the second application discloses techniques for determining whether or not a reference pattern is... Read more →

Intel and Samsung DRM Patents

On Tuesdays, the USPTO issues new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents deal with aspects of DRM. Assigned to Intel, the first patent addresses operating system independent data management. Assigned to Samsung, the second patent addresses techniques for controlling output to an output device according to each content. 7,565,685, "Operating... Read more →

Kindle Orwellian Bruhaha Revisited

As noted yesterday, Amazon had deleted copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm and issued a credit to purchasers. In an Information Week article, EFF attorney Fred Von Lohmann considers the Kindle EULA: The incident, he said, highlighted the gap in understanding about rights in the digital world and... Read more →

MiniTrue: Orwell Unperson

The Ministry of Truth to Records Department: George Orwell unperson; revise immediately. Doubleplusbad 1984 and Animal Farm down "memory hole." This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had... Read more →

Macrovision Becomes Rovi

As part of its evolving corporate strategy, Macrovision, the owners of Blu-ray BD+ security technologies, has changed its name to Rovi. Broadcast and Cable says: Macrovision, the analog copy-protection giant which shifted strategy last year by acquiring interactive program guide leader Gemstar-TV Guide for $2.8 billion, is now rebranding itself... Read more →

Xerox Watermarking and Sony Fingerprinting Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new patent applications. Today's Spotlight Applications concern watermarking and fingerprinting, which continue to be hot topics. Assigned to Xerox, the first application discloses techniques for UV encryption via intelligent halftoning. Assigned to Sony (Great Britain), the second application dicloses techniques for detecting fingerpirnt code words.... Read more →

Microsft Fingerprinting and Digimarc Watermarking Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO issues new patents. Today's Spotlight Patents concern digital fingerprinting and digital watermarking. Assigned to Microsoft, the first patent addresses techniques for forensic for fingerprint detection in multimedia. Assigned to Digimarc, the second patent addresses techniques for reversable watermarking. 7,562,228, "Forensic for fingerprint detection in multimedia," assigned... Read more →