Patent ID: 7593578

Claim:
An apparatus for coding and decoding, comprising: a decoding unit configured to decode compressed and coded data to restore original image data; an additional information extracting unit configured to extract additional information from the compressed and coded data when the compressed and coded data is decoded by the decoding unit; a display unit configured to display the image data restored by the decoding unit on a screen; a storing unit configured to store the image data restored by the decoding unit and the additional information extracted by the additional information extracting unit in memory, the additional information being information included in a comment marker corresponding to said compressed and coded data; a coding unit configured to encode the image data and at least a portion of the additional information stored in said memory as information additional to the image data when performing second-time encoding of the image data decoded by said decoding unit to generate second-time-encoded data inclusive of the image data as decoded and then encoded and the portion of the additional information as extracted and then encoded; and a selection unit configured to select whether to encode the additional information when said coding unit performs the second-time encoding.