Patent ID: 7287163

Claim:
A digital watermark embedding apparatus for performing digital watermark embedding, comprising: superimposing portion selecting means for dividing each frame of data to be watermarked into a plurality of data areas, said superimposing portion selecting means determining borders of each data area based on data characteristics of each data area in the frame; superimposing level determining means for selecting and determining beforehand which digital watermark embedding algorithm to apply to each of the data areas in the frame generated by said superimposing portion selecting means from among a plurality of different applicable algorithms based on characteristics of each of the data areas in the frame; digital watermark generating means for generating digital watermark information based on additional information to be embedded as a digital watermark; digital watermark level controlling means for generating, on the basis of the digital watermark information generated by said digital watermark generating means, a digital watermark pattern in which the digital watermark embedding algorithm determined by said superimposing level determining means is applied; and digital watermark superimposing means for embedding the digital watermark pattern output by said digital watermark level controlling means into the data to be watermarked.