Managing and indexing content on a network with image bookmarks and digital watermarks

• US 20050216850A1
• Filed: 02/02/2005
• Published: 09/29/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/1996
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Original Assignee: Digimarc Corporation
• Inventors: MacIntosh, Brian T., Rhoads, Geoffrey B., Ramos, Daniel O.
• Granted Patent: US 7,685,426 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/763
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9562 Bookmark management

Abstract

A method of managing content, and in particular, managing content on the Internet retrieves a web page that includes an image and detects whether the image included within the web page is embedded with a digital watermark. It generates an indicia associated with an image included in the web page that is embedded with a digital watermark. The indicia indicate to the user which images include watermarks. The watermarks may be used to convey links to related web pages or specific information about the images, such as usage rights and licensing information. Variations of this method create image bookmarks to web pages including images using thumbnails of those images. A content management system comprises a first program for retrieving web pages including images. It also includes a second program for extracting an image from a web page, creating a thumbnail of the image, and forming an image bookmark linking the thumbnail to the web page that the image has been extracted from. The thumbnails are used to create a visual index to corresponding web pages from which the images originated on the Internet. A method of visual indexing of content on a network, such as the Internet, retrieves a web page, extracts an image included on the web page, generates a thumbnail of the image, and creates a link between the thumbnail and a location of the web page from which the image has been extracted.

Claims

1. A method of managing content, comprising:

retrieving a web page that includes an image,

detecting whether the image included within the web page is embedded with a digital watermark, and

generating an indicia associated with an image included in the web page that is embedded with a digital watermark.

2. The method of claim 1 including:

displaying the indicia along with the image that is embedded with a digital watermark to indicate that the image includes a digital watermark.

3. The method of claim 1 including:

generating thumbnails of images from web pages retrieved from the network along with links associating the thumbnails of the images to corresponding web page locations where the images are located on a network.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the thumbnails are organized into a user interface of image bookmarks to corresponding web pages.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the user interface provides a navigation history of web pages visited by a user.

6. The method of claim 4 including:

enabling a user to add an image found on a web page to a list of image bookmarks depicted in the user interface, and maintaining the list of image bookmarks.

7. The method of claim 4 including:

directing a browser to a corresponding web page in response to a user selecting an image bookmark.

8. A system for managing content, comprising

a first program for retrieving web pages including images,

a second program for extracting an image from a web page, creating a thumbnail of the image, and forming an image bookmark linking the thumbnail to the web page that the image has been extracted from.

9. The system of claim 8 including:

a program for detecting a digital watermark in the image extracted from a web page.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the system is operable to generate indicia for images in which digital watermarks are detected, the indicia serving to identify images that include a digital watermark.

11. The system of claim 8 wherein the first program comprises a web browser.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the second program comprises code that executes with the web browser.

13. The system of claim 8 wherein the first program displays a web page in a first window and a thumbnail of an image in the web page in a second window.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the thumbnail of the image is annotated with indicia when a digital watermark is detected in the image.

15. The system of claim 8 wherein the system is operable to maintain and display a list of thumbnails as image bookmarks linking the thumbnails to corresponding images on web pages where the thumbnails originated.

16. A method of visual indexing of content on a network, the method comprising:

retrieving a web page;

extracting an image included on the web page;

generating a thumbnail of the image;

creating a link between the thumbnail and a location of the web page from which the image has been extracted.

17. The method of claim 16 including:

in response to a request from a user, displaying a web page depicting thumbnails, the thumbnails each being associated with a link to a corresponding web page in which the image from which the thumbnail has been generated is located.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the web page depicting thumbnails represents an index to images stored on the Internet.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein the web page depicting thumbnails represents a history of web pages visited by a user.

20. The method of claim 16 including displaying the image extracted from a web page in a separate window from a window in which the web page is displayed, and enabling a user to create an image bookmark to the image.