New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. This week's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital watermarking and digital fingerprinting. Assigned to IBM, the first patent addresses techniques for multiple source watermarking for surveillance. Assigned to Google, the second patent addresses techniques for detecting and suppressing voice queries.
10,169,838, "Multiple source watermarking for surveillance," assigned to IBM.
Abstract
A method, computer program product, and system for generating and embedding a watermark in digital video frame include a processor obtaining a request to generate a watermark and embed the watermark in a digital video frame captured by a first monitor. Based on obtaining the request, the processor fetches from one or more pre-defined regions of a memory resource, digital video data captured by at least two monitors, where a timestamp of the digital video data is equal to a timestamp of the digital video frame. The processor generates a watermark from the digital video data by calculating a binary result of the digital video data. The processor embeds the watermark (binary result) in the digital video frame.
10,170,112, "Detecting and suppressing voice queries," assigned to Google.
Abstract
A computing system receives requests from client devices to process voice queries that have been detected in local environments of the client devices. The system identifies that a value that is based on a number of requests to process voice queries received by the system during a specified time interval satisfies one or more criteria. In response, the system triggers analysis of at least some of the requests received during the specified time interval to trigger analysis of at least some received requests to determine a set of requests that each identify a common voice query. The system can generate an electronic fingerprint that indicates a distinctive model of the common voice query. The fingerprint can then be used to detect an illegitimate voice query identified in a request from a client device at a later time.
