Photographic products and methods employing embedded information
US5822436A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Apr 25, 1996 |
| Grant date | Oct 13, 1998 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Apr 25, 2016 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
- CPC primaryY10T428/24876
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Technology is now available permitting consumers to make amateur-or even professional-grade copies of photographs. For wedding and portrait photographers, in particular, the business of making duplications is fundamental to their livelihoods. The threat of such copying is felt strongly. To redress these concerns, a machine-readable marking is provided on emulsion films, photographic papers, and the like. The marking encodes digital information, yet is essentially imperceptible to the human eye. A photographic duplication kiosk can be constructed to read this embedded information and, if warranted by the embedded information, to disable the kiosk's copying function. An exemplary embodiment pre-exposes the photographic product with a spatial domain representation of the embedded data, and may include rotationally symmetric one-or two-dimensional patterns. Numerous other implementations are similarly practical.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.