Image analysis – Applications
Reexamination Certificate
1997-08-27
2001-08-28
Johns, Andrew W. (Department: 2621)
Image analysis
Applications
Reexamination Certificate
active
06282299
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates generally to techniques for embedding data such as watermarks, signatures and captions in digital data, and more particularly to watermarks in digital data that relates to video.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Digital video is readily reproduced and distributed over information networks. However, these attractive properties lead to problems enforcing copyright protection. As a result, creators and distributors of digital video are hesitant to provide access to their digital intellectual property. Digital watermarking has been proposed as a means to identify the owner and distribution path of digital data. Digital watermarks address this issue by embedding owner identification directly into the digital data itself. The information is embedded by making small modifications to the pixels in each video frame. When the ownership of a video is in question, the information can be extracted to completely characterize the owner or distributor of the data.
Video watermarking introduces issues that generally do not have a counterpart in images and audio. Video signals are highly redundant by nature, with many frames visually similar to each other. Due to large amounts of data and inherent redundancy between frames, video signals are highly susceptible to pirate attacks, including frame averaging, frame dropping, interpolation, statistical analysis, etc. Many of these attacks may be accomplished with little damage to the video signal. A video watermark must handle such attacks. Furthermore, it should identify any image created from one or more frames in the video.
Furthermore, to be useful, a watermark must be perceptually invisible, statistically undetectable, robust to distortions applied to the host video, and able to resolve multiple ownership claims. Some watermarking techniques modify spatial/temporal data samples, while others modify transform coefficients. A particular problem afflicting all prior art techniques, however, is the resolution of rightful ownership of digital data when multiple ownership claims are made, i.e., the deadlock problem. Watermarking schemes that do not use the original data set to detect the watermark are most vulnerable to deadlock. A pirate simply adds his or her watermark to the watermarked data. It is then impossible to establish who watermarked the data first.
Watermarking procedures that require the original data set for watermark detection also suffer from deadlocks. In such schemes, a party other than the owner may counterfeit a watermark by “subtracting off” a second watermark from the publicly available data and claim the result to be his or her original. This second watermark allows the pirate to claim copyright ownership since he or she can show that both the publicly available data and the original of the rightful owner contain a copy of their counterfeit watermark.
There is a need, therefore, for watermarking procedures applicable to video digital data that do not suffer from the described shortcomings, disadvantages and problems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The above-identified shortcomings, disadvantages and problems found within the prior art are addressed by the present invention, which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification. The invention provides for the watermarking of video data.
In one embodiment of the invention, discrete objects are extracted from video host data that is made up of a number of successive frames. Each object is assigned and embedded with a watermark. The watermark is embedded by generating the watermark, applying it to a perceptual (frequency) mask of the block, spatially (non-frequency) masking the resulting block, and re-adding the block to that spatially masked result. The objects are collected into a database so that an object may be tracked as it is transformed from frame to frame of the video host data. A unique watermark generation routine is also described that assists in the resolution of deadlock.
The approach of the invention provides advantages over the approaches found in the prior art. In the prior art, an independent watermark applied to each frame may result in detection of the watermark by statistically comparing or averaging similar regions and objects in successive video frames, as has been described in the background. However, the inventive object-based approach addresses this issue by embedding watermarks in objects that persist across frames. That is, the same watermark is embedded in the object, as that object exists from frame to frame. Therefore, statistical comparison or averaging does not yield the watermark.
Further aspects, advantages and embodiments of the invention will become apparent by reference to the drawings, and by reading the following detailed description.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3395024 (1968-07-01), Earle
patent: 4313197 (1982-01-01), Maxemchuk
patent: 4425661 (1984-01-01), Moses et al.
patent: 4495620 (1985-01-01), Steele et al.
patent: 4969041 (1990-11-01), O'Grady et al.
patent: 5010405 (1991-04-01), Schreiber et al.
patent: 5060262 (1991-10-01), Bevins, Jr. et al.
patent: 5285498 (1994-02-01), Johnston
patent: 5315098 (1994-05-01), Tow
patent: 5319735 (1994-06-01), Preuss et al.
patent: 5325290 (1994-06-01), Cauffman et al.
patent: 5379345 (1995-01-01), Greenberg
patent: 5386240 (1995-01-01), Hori
patent: 5404377 (1995-04-01), Moses
patent: 5450490 (1995-09-01), Jensen et al.
patent: 5461426 (1995-10-01), Limberg et al.
patent: 5465269 (1995-11-01), Schaffner et al.
patent: 5465308 (1995-11-01), Hutcheson et al.
patent: 5473631 (1995-12-01), Moses
patent: 5515296 (1996-05-01), Agarwal
patent: 5530759 (1996-06-01), Braudaway et al.
patent: 5579471 (1996-11-01), Barber et al.
patent: 5583941 (1996-12-01), Yoshida et al.
patent: 5606609 (1997-02-01), Houser et al.
patent: 5613004 (1997-03-01), Cooperman et al.
patent: 5646997 (1997-07-01), Barton
patent: 5687236 (1997-11-01), Moskowitz et al.
patent: 5710719 (1998-01-01), Houle
patent: 5710916 (1998-01-01), Barbaraet et al.
patent: 5809139 (1998-09-01), Girod et al.
patent: 5848155 (1998-12-01), Cox
patent: 5850481 (1998-12-01), Rhoads
patent: 5859920 (1999-01-01), Daly et al.
patent: 5905819 (1999-05-01), Daly
patent: 5930369 (1999-07-01), Cox et al.
patent: 6031914 (2000-02-01), Tewfik et al.
patent: 0581317 (1994-02-01), None
patent: 0635798 (1995-01-01), None
patent: 0 635 798 (1995-01-01), None
patent: 0657831 (1995-06-01), None
patent: 0 657 831 (1995-06-01), None
patent: 07-160731 (1995-06-01), None
Ohnishi, J., et al., “Embedding a seal into a picture under orthogonal wavelet transform”, IEEE Pro. 3rd Int. Conf. on Multimedia Computing & Systems, 514-521, (Jun. 17-23, 1996).
Szepanski, “Additive Binärdatenübertragung Für Videosignale,”NTG-Fachberichte,vol. 74, 1980, pp. 343-351 (in German with English translation).*
Cox et al., “Secure Spread Spectrum Watermarking for Multimedia,” NEC Research Institute, Technical Report 95-10, Dec. 1995, pp. 1-33.*
Podilchuk et al., “Digital Image Watermarking Using Visual Models,” Proc. IS&T/SPIE Human Vision and Electronics Imaging II, Feb. 9-14, 1997, pp. 100-111.*
Tao et al., “Adaptive Watermarking in the DCT Domain,” Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Apr. 21-24, 1997, pp. 2985-2988.*
Swanson et al., “Object-based Transparent Video Watermarking,” Proc. IEEE 1st Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing, Jun. 23-25, 1997, pp. 369-374.*
Aizawa, K., “Model-Based Image Coding”, Proceedings, SPIE Visual Communications and Image Processing '94, 2308, Chicago, IL, 1035-1049, (Sep. 25-29, 1994).
Baritaud, T., et al., “On the Security of the Permuted Kernel Identification Scheme”, Proceedings of the 12th Annual International Cryptology Conference, Advances in Cryptology—CRYPTO '92, Brickell, E.F., (ed.), Santa Barbara, CA, 306-311, (Aug. 16-20, 1992).
Bender, W., et al., “Techniques for Data Hiding”,IBM Systems Journal,15 (3 & 4), 313-336, (1996).
Bender, W., et al., “Techniques for Data Hiding”, SPIE, 2420, 164-173, (1995).
Boland, F.M., et al., “Watermarking Digital Ima
Swanson Mitchell D.
Tewfik Ahmed H.
Zhu Bin
Johns Andrew W.
Regents of the University of Minnesota
Schwegman Lundberg Woessner & Kluth P.A.
LandOfFree
Method and apparatus for video watermarking using perceptual... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Method and apparatus for video watermarking using perceptual..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Method and apparatus for video watermarking using perceptual... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2482255