Multi-stage watermarking process and system
AssigneeContentGuard Holdings, Inc.
InventorsXin Wang, Steve Atsushi Okamoto, Russell Robert Lear, Nancy Lynn Ishigo
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A multi-stage watermarking system and process that creates a watermark specification which describes how to generate a watermark, generates a template specification which describes how to merge the watermark into a target document, generates the watermark based on the watermark specification, and merges the watermark into the target document based on the template specification to provide a watermarked document.
Claims18
A method of recovering content information from a watermark in a target digital document to be carried out by a computer adapted to perform the steps of:
- locating the watermark in the target document based on a pre-determined template specification that describes a manner in which the watermark was merged into the target document, the template specification identifying at least one watermark specification and providing a mapping list indicating a manner in which at least one watermark associated with the at least one watermark specification is merged into a document;
- and
- obtaining the content information from the located watermark according to a watermark specification identified by the template specification, the watermark specification identifying a specific watermarking technology and a target object into which the watermark was placed.
A watermark recovery system comprising:
- a watermarked document including a watermark with encoded content information;
- a watermark specification for identifying a specific watermarking technology and identifying a target object in which the watermark is placed;
- a template specification identifying at least one watermark specification and providing a mapping list indicating a manner in which at least one watermark associated with the at least one watermark specification is merged into a document;
- a watermark scanning module for scanning the watermarked document to locate a watermark according to the template specification, the watermark scanning module including a repository for storing at least one of the template specification and a watermark specification;
- and
- a watermark recovery module for recovering the content information from the located watermark according to a watermark specification identified by the template specification.
A method for creating a watermark in a target digital document at different stages of the target document life cycle to be carried out by a computer adapted to perform the steps of:
- scanning the target document containing a target watermark;
- recovering the target watermark from the target document, the recovered target watermark indicating a template specification that describes how the target watermark was merged into the target document;
- generating an additional watermark according to a watermark specification;
- updating the template specification by adding the watermark specification and associating the additional watermark with the watermark specification in the template specification;
- and
- merging the generated additional watermark with the scanned target document.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.