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EP0840513A2 Expired / Lapsed EP ⏱️ 0.0 years remaining

Digital data watermarking

Assignee: NEC Personal Computers Ltd
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Filing: 1997-11-04
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2017-11-04
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Abstract

Abstract Digital watermarking of data, including image, video and audio data, is performed by repeatedly inserting the watermark into subregions or subimages of the data. Similarly, the watermark is repeatedly extracted from the subregions of the data.

Inventors

  • 👤 Ingemar J. Cox
  • 👤 Matthew L. Miller
  • 👤 Kazuyoshi c/o NEC Corporation Tanaka
  • 👤 Yutaka c/o NEC Corporation Wakasu

Bibliographic Details

Application Number —
Jurisdiction EP
Data Source google_patents
Last Synchronized 2026-11-09 11:59
CPC Classifications
H; H04; H04N; H04N5/00; H04N5/76; H04N5/91; H04N5/913; G; G06; G06T; G06T1/00; G06T1/0021; G06T1/0028; G06T1/0035; H04N1/00; H04N1/32; H04N1/32101; H04N1/32144; H04N1/32149; H04N1/32154; H04N1/32165; H04N1/32267; H04N1/32277; H04N1/32288; H04N1/32304; H04N19/00; H04N19/46; H04N19/467; H04N19/48; H04N21/00; H04N21/20; H04N21/23; H04N21/238; H04N21/2389; H04N21/23892; H04N21/80; H04N21/83; H04N21/835; H04N21/8358; G06T2201/00; G06T2201/005; G06T2201/0052; G06T2201/0053; G06T2201/0061; G11; G11B; G11B20/00; G11B20/00086; G11B20/00884; G11B20/00913; H04N2201/00; H04N2201/32; H04N2201/3201; H04N2201/3225; H04N2201/3233; H04N2201/3269; H04N2201/327; H04N2201/328; H04N2201/3284

Claims Analysis

Total Claims: 23
Claim 1
Independent Claim 93 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked comprising the steps of: dividing data to be watermarked into a plurality of subregions; computing frequency coefficients of the data to be watermarked in each subregion; spread spectrum modulating a watermark signal to be inserted by mapping the watermark signal into a PN (pseudo-random noise) sequence; spectral shaping the PN sequence as a function of the average power in each frequency coefficient of the data; and inserting each spectral shaped PN sequence into predetermined coefficients in the data in each subregion.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim 28 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked as set forth in claim 1, where said frequency coefficients are DCT (discrete cosine transform) coefficients.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim 31 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked as set forth in claim 1 or 2, where each subregion is a 8 x 8 block of pixels,
Claim 4
Dependent Claim 39 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked as set forth in claim 3,where the frequency coefficients of the watermark signal are rotated prior to inserting of each spectral shaped PN sequence into the subregion.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim 34 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked as set forth in claim 4, where only a subset of the watermark signal frequency coefficients is inserted into any one subregion.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim 31 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked as set forth in claim 5 , where the watermark signal comprises a synchronization portion and a verification portion.
Claim 7
Independent Claim 34 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked as set forth in any of claims 1 to 6, where said inserting is performed after the data undergoes MPEG quantization processing.
Claim 8
Independent Claim 35 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked as set forth in claims 6 or 7, where the synchronisation portion and the verification portion have very little correlation between each other.
Claim 9
Independent Claim 53 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked as set forth in any of claims 1 to 8, where the spectral shaping as a function of the average power is typically 3 x 1 window of the coefficient obtained from the one-dimensional vectorization by zigzagging of two-dimension frequency coefficients.
Claim 10
Independent Claim 45 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked as set forth in any of claims 1 to 8, where the spectral shaping is a function of the average power based on the two four-connected frequency coefficients closest to the DC term.
Claim 11
Independent Claim 93 words
A method of extracting a watermark from watermarked data comprising the steps of: receiving subregions of watermarked data; spectrum normalizing the watermarked data from each subregion to generate respective normalized signals; combining the respective normalized signals from each subregion to generate a single watermark; correlating the single watermark with predetermined PN (pseudo-random noise) sequences corresponding to predetermined symbols to provide correlated signals for each predetermined PN sequence in each subregion; deciding which correlated signal is most likely a current symbol; and extracting a sequence of most likely current symbols corresponding to the watermark.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim 29 words
A method of extracting a watermark from watermarked data as set forth in claim 11, where the subregions are 8 x 8 blocks used for MPEG encoding and decoding.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim 39 words
A method of extracting a watermark from watermarked data as set forth in claim 12, where said combining the normalized signals from each subregion to generate a single watermark, including removing the relative rotation of the watermark between blocks.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim 28 words
A method of extracting a watermark from watermarked data as set forth in claim 13, further comprising subsequently reconstructing the watermark from partial watermarks inserted into each block.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim 46 words
A method of extracting a watermark from watermarked data as set forth in claim 14, further comprising weighting the watermark coefficients based on their location within the frequency spectrum, where the weighting is a function of the susceptibility of each frequency coefficient to common signal transformations.
Claim 16
Dependent Claim 31 words
A method of extracting a watermark from watermarked data as set forth in claim 11, further comprising correlating with all rotational shifts of the extracted watermark and selecting the maximum value.
Claim 17
Dependent Claim 69 words
A method of extracting a watermark from watermarked data as set forth in claim 11, further comprising correlating with all rotational shifts of a synchronization portion of a watermark to determine a maximum value and subsequently rotating a verification portion of the watermark by the same amount as the synchronization portion is rotated to obtain the maximum value prior to correlating between the verification portion and predetermined PN sequences.
Claim 18
Independent Claim 94 words
A method of extracting a watermark from watermarked data comprising the steps of: receiving subregions of watermarked data; spectrum normalizing the watermarked data from each subregion to generate respective normalized signals; correlating the respective normalized signals with predetermined PN sequences corresponding to predetermined symbols to provide correlated signals for each predetermined PN sequence in each subregion; deciding which correlated signal is most likely a current symbol in each subregion for providing an extracted symbol stream; error correcting the extracted symbol stream; and extracting a sequence of most likely current symbols corresponding to the watermark.
Claim 19
Dependent Claim 24 words
A method of extracting a watermark from watermarked data as set forth in claim 18, where said error correction is Reed Solomon error correction.
Claim 20
Independent Claim 58 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked comprising the steps of: dividing data to be watermarked into a plurality of subregions; dividing a watermark signal into a plurality of subwatermarks where portions of the watermark are contained in more than one subwatermark; and inserting said plurality of subwatermarks into said plurality of subregions.
Claim 21
Dependent Claim 36 words
A method for inserting a watermark signal into data to be watermarked as set forth in claim 20, where each subwatermark is inserted into a respective subregion, so that each subregion contains at least one subwatermark.
Claim 22
Independent Claim 53 words
A method for extracting a watermark signal from watermarked data comprising the steps of: receiving a plurality of subregions of watermark data; extracting a subwatermark from each subregion of said plurality of subregions; and combining and averaging the subwatermarks extracted from all the subregions to obtain a signal commensurate with the watermark signal.
Claim 23
Dependent Claim 67 words
A method for extracting a watermark signal from watermarked data as set forth in claim 22, further comprising the steps of: dividing the signal commensurate with the watermark signal into a plurality of symbol signals; correlating each symbol signal with a set of predefined signals; determining which predefined signal best corresponds to each symbol signal; and combining the best corresponding predetermined signals to generate the watermark signal.

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