Patent ID: 11962875
Assignee: DIGIMARC CORPORATION
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  H  G | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A method of sorting plastic items in a material stream, including the acts:
decoding first plural-symbol payload information from a machine-readable indicia on a first item, the decoded first plural-symbol payload information including a plastic recycling code indicating a type of plastic used in the first item;
sorting the first item from said waste stream based on said plastic recycling code included in the first plural-symbol payload information;
decoding second plural-symbol payload information from a machine-readable indicia on a second item, the decoded second plural-symbol payload information omitting a plastic recycling code, but including an identifier code;
based on said identifier code, obtaining a corresponding plastic recycling code from a database; and
sorting the second item from said waste stream based on the plastic recycling code obtained from the database;
said method also including decoding the first plural-symbol payload information from the first item using a first decoding algorithm, and decoding the second plural-symbol payload information from the second item using a second decoding algorithm, the method further including sorting the first item to a first destination based on said plastic recycling code included in the first plural-symbol payload information, and sorting the second item to a second destination based on said plastic recycling code obtained from the database, wherein:
the second destination is the same as the first destination;
the first item and the second item are two instances of a same type of item;
each of said first item and said second item is marked with both a first machine-readable indicia and a second machine-readable indicia, the first machine-readable indicia being formed by a first process and the second machine-readable indicia being formed by a second process different than the first process, said first machine-readable indicia employing a first signaling protocol and the second machine readable indicia employing a second signaling protocol different than the first signaling protocol; and
the first decoding algorithm is different than the second decoding algorithm, said difference including that the first decoding algorithm is adapted to read machine-readable indicia employing the first signaling protocol, and the second decoding algorithm is adapted to read machine-readable indicia employing the second signaling protocol that is different than the first signaling protocol;
wherein an item can be sorted from the material stream based on reading of either the first or second machine-readable indicia, by said respective first or second decoding algorithm; and
wherein the first machine-readable indicia comprises a first digital watermark, and the second machine-readable indicia comprises a second digital watermark.