Today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital watermarking. Assigned to Taiyuan University of Technology (CN), the first of today's patents addresses techniques for embedding spread spectrum watermark into images with self-adaptive embedding strength. Assigned to NXP (NL), the second patent addresses techniques for watermarking an audio signal with spatial information.
10,977,760, 'Method for embedding spread spectrum watermark into images with self-adaptive embedding strength," assigned to Taiyuan University of Technology (CN)
Abstract
A method for embedding the spread spectrum watermark into images with the self-adaptive embedding strength includes the following steps: designing a spread spectrum watermark capable of completely shielding a host signal interference by using prior knowledge of the host signal interference, self-adaptively adjusting a value of an embedding strength in the spread spectrum watermark with different host images, ensuring imperceptibility of each image while simultaneously maximizing robustness of the watermark, and finally embedding the spread spectrum watermark in the host image. The present disclosure can not only completely shield the host signal interference but also effectively withstand various common image processing attacks and geometric attacks, and at the same time, all the watermarked images can obtain consistent imperceptibility. The present disclosure can be applied to various watermarking techniques based on discrete cosine transform.
10,964,332, "Audio communication method and apparatus for watermarking an audio signal with spatial information," assigned to NXP (NL)
Abstract
An apparatus and method for speech communication is described. An audio transmit processor captures at least two audio signals from an audio source, and processes the at least two audio signals to provide a mono audio signal and a non-audio signal comprising spatial information representative of the direction of the audio source. The audio transmit processor combines the non-audio signal with the mono audio signal by watermarking; and transmits the watermarked audio signal. An audio receive processor receives a watermarked audio signal and extracts a mono audio signal and a non-audio signal comprising spatial information from the watermarked audio signal. The audio receive processor processes the mono audio signal and spatial information to generate at least two output audio signals.
