DIGITAL WATERMARKS AS A COMMUNICATION CHANNEL IN DOCUMENTS FOR CONTROLLING DOCUMENT PROCESSING DEVICES

摘要

Digital watermarks are embedded in documents (44, 60) to create a communication channel between document handling devices such as copiers (24, 26), printers (64, 66), scanners (52, 54) and fax machines (24, 26). The digital watermarks are used to control document reproduction and transmission operations. The digital watermarks are also used to embed transaction information in documents (44, 60), to link the document (44, 60) to an original, electronic version stored on a network (48, 50), or to trace the document handling history of a document (44, 60).