Protection of an electronically stored image in a first color space by the alteration of digital component in a second color space

• US 5,893,101 A
• Filed: 03/28/1997
• Issued: 04/06/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/1994
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Systems Research and Applications Corporation (General Dynamics Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Systems Research and Applications Corporation (General Dynamics Corporation)
• Inventors: Evans, David, Flank, Sharon, Chen, Eugene, Martin, Patrick, Maloney, John, Balogh, Aristotle, Briggs, Robert, Rothey, James, Lorton, Michael, Iannacone, Carmen, Schmid, Gary, Blejer, Hatte, Dozier, Linda T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Black, Thomas G.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Corrielus, Jean M.
• Application Number:
  US08/828,924
• Time in Patent Office: 739 Days
• Field of Search: 707/104, 707/528, 707/908, 707/100, 380/54, 395/101, 399/1, 399/366, 364/225.5, 364/282.1, 364/963.5, 364/974
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/54 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5838 using colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/587 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/70 of video data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/78 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0021 Image watermarking
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/00 2D [Two Dimensional] image generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00864 Modifying the reproduction, e.g. outputting a modified copy of a scanned original details of composing or otherwise geometrically modifying originals H04N1/387
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00872 by image quality reduction, e.g. distortion or blacking out
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32144 embedded in the image data, i.e. enclosed or integrated in the image, e.g. watermark, super-imposed logo or stamp
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32208 involving changing the magnitude of selected pixels, e.g. overlay of information or super-imposition H04N1/32219, H04N1/32224 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32251 in multilevel data, e.g. greyscale or continuous tone data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32309 in colour image data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3233 of authentication information, e.g. digital signature, watermark
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/327 which are undetectable to the naked eye, e.g. embedded codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3273 Display
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/915 Image
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/966 Distributed
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 : Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

Digitized images are associated with English language captions and other data, collectively known as the metadata associated with the images. A natural language processing database removes ambiguities from the metadata, and the images and the metadata are stored in databases. A user formulates a search query, and natural language processing is used to determine matches between the query and the stored metadata. Images corresponding to the matches are then viewed, and desired images are selected for licensing. The license terms for selected images are displayed, and a subset of the selected images are ordered as desired by the user.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented process of protecting an electronically stored image from unauthorized use in a first color space, comprising:

storing the image in a second color space;

altering a constituent second color space component of the stored image responsive to relative magnitude of said component to form an altered image by making a first alteration to first image portions having characteristics above a threshold and by making a second alteration to second image portions having characteristics below the threshold; and

distributing the altered image for use in the second color space.

2. A computer-implemented process as in claim 1, wherein the first alteration includes addition of an offset, and the second alteration includes subtraction of the offset.

3. A computer-implemented process as in claim 1, wherein the threshold corresponds to brightness of a predetermined color component.

4. A computer-implemented process as in claim 3, wherein the predetermined color component is blue.