Multi-stage watermarking process and system

• US 7,609,848 B2
• Filed: 08/24/2005
• Issued: 10/27/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: ContentGuard Holdings, Inc. (Pendrell Corporation)
• Original Assignee: ContentGuard Holdings, Inc. (Pendrell Corporation)
• Inventors: Wang, Xin, Okamoto, Steve Atsushi, Ishigo, Nancy Lynn, Lear, Russell Robert
• Primary Examiner(s): Tabatabai; Abolfazl
• Application Number:
  US11/209,647
• Publication Number:
  US 20050283611A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,525 Days
• Field of Search: 382/100, 382/232, 382/240, 380/51, 380/54, 380/201, 380/210, 380/252, 380/287, 370522-529, 283/72, 283 74- 81, 283/85, 283/113, 283/901, 283/902, 713/176, 713/179, 358/3.28, 348/461, 348/463, 705/57, 705/58, 725/9, 725/20, 725/22
• US Class Current: 382/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0021 Image watermarking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32149 Methods relating to embedding, encoding, decoding, detection or retrieval operations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32315 Selecting a particular method from amongst a plurality of methods
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3236 Details of authentication information generation

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.

Claims

1. 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.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one watermark specification is described using a watermark specification language including grammar elements.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtained content information includes dynamic information pertaining to different stages of the life cycle of the target document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the content information indicates at least one of document type, document-associated application, document authenticity and document source.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined template specification is identified by comparing a plurality of template specifications to the target document and selecting a match.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the content information further comprises

selecting a watermark specification identified by the pre-determined template specification;

comparing the located watermark to the selected watermark specification to identify if the selected watermark specification is a matched watermark specification; and

decoding the located watermark into the content information according to the matched watermark specification if the located watermark matches the selected watermark specification.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the target document comprises audio or video content.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the target watermark has a dataglyph format indicating a form type associated with the template specification.

8. 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.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the template specification describes the manner in which the watermark was merged into the target document.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the content information indicates at least one of document type, document-associated application, document authenticity and document source.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the watermarked document comprises audio or video content.

18. The system of claim 8, wherein the target watermark has a dataglyph format indicating a form type associated with the template specification.

12. 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.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the template specification identifies at least one watermark specification and provides a mapping list of how the target watermark associated with the at least one watermark specification is merged, the at least one watermark specification identifying a specific watermarking technology and a target object in which the additional watermark is placed.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the additional watermark includes dynamic information pertaining to different stages of the life cycle of the target document.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the target watermark has a dataglyph format indicating a form type associated with the template specification.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the target document comprises audio or video content.