New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to Thomson (FR), the first patent addresses techniques for assessing the presence of a watermark in a video. Assigned to Samsung, the second patent addresses techniques for using watermarking for tracking hacked content and method and apparatus for blocking hacking of content using the same.
9,384,521, "Method and device for assessing the presence of a watermark in a video," assigned to Thomson (FR).
Abstract
The invention relates to a method for assessing the presence of a watermark in a video wherein the video comprises at least a sequence of frames. The method comprises for at least one frame among one of the sequences of frames the steps of computing a set of axial cross-correlation values, wherein each axial cross-correlation value corresponds to a correlation between the frame and a reference watermark shifted along a spatial horizontal axis; obtaining a detection score by computing a weighted sum of values output by a function applied to said axial cross-correlation values; assessing the presence of a watermark according to the detection score. Such method is particularly well adapted to the detection of disparity coherent watermark but is compliant with any watermarking technique. A device implementing the method is further disclosed.9,384,332, "Watermarking method and apparatus for tracking hacked content and method and apparatus for blocking hacking of content using the same," assigned to Samsung (KR).
Abstract
Watermarking method and apparatus for tracking hacking and method and apparatus for blocking hacking of content are provided. The watermarking method includes: obtaining device information from a reception device, with which content is shared, through a determined network channel; generating watermark data based on the obtained device information; and generating watermarked multimedia content by inserting the generated watermark data into content. The method of blocking hacking of content includes: if hacked content is found, detecting watermark data from the hacked content; detecting transmission and reception device information from the detected watermark data; and extracting a progress route of the content based on the detected transmission and reception device information and performing revocation on a hacked device.