New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. This weeks Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to Tata (IN), the first of this week's patents addresses techniques for embedding and extracting a watermark from a digital media. Assigned to Verance, the second patent addresses techniques for content synchronization using watermark timecodes.
10,354,355, "Digital watermarking," assigned to Tata Consultancy Services (IN).
Abstract
System(s) and method(s) for embedding and extracting a watermark from a digital media are described. The method may include embedding a set of watermark bits in a N*N block of the digital media based on a local binary pattern (LBP) synthesis process. The LBP synthesis process comprises changing a value of a neighbor of a central pixel of the N*N block to make the value of the neighbor greater than a value of the central pixel when a watermark bit corresponding to the neighbor is `1` and changing the value of the neighbor of the central pixel to make the value of the neighbor lesser than the value of the central pixel when the watermark bit corresponding to the neighbor is `0`.
10,354,354, "Content synchronization using watermark timecodes," assigned to Verance.
Abstract
Methods, devices and computer program products allow improved synchronization among multiple contents. One disclosed method includes receiving a first and a second content and performing watermark extraction to recover a first timecode as part of a watermark embedded into a segment of that content. The first timecode conforms to a first type of timing system. Next, a timing system associated with the second content is determined, and a mapping is obtained that allows timecode conversion between the first and the second timing systems. Using the mapping to synchronize the presentation of the second content with that of the first content. Thus synchronization of multiple contents is properly maintained even when processing operations such as format conversion and transcoding cause metadata streams that carry timing information to be removed.
