Patent ID: 7911653

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a unit configured to obtain image data by reading a document on which an image is printed, the image including a small dot group consisting of small dots, wherein the small dots will disappear upon duplication and wherein the small dot group has a history information area, and a large dot group consisting of large dots, wherein the large dots will not disappear upon duplication and wherein the large dot group has coordinate position information embedded therein; an image processing unit configured to perform image processing for the duplication on the image data that is obtained; an embedment information extraction unit configured (i) to extract the embedded coordinate position information, which shows an area on which the small dot group is dependent, using the large dot group for the image data that is obtained and (ii) to extract history information on the duplication using the small dot group; a unit configured to generate history information that includes information on the current duplication by editing the history information that is extracted; and a unit configured to generate image data such that, in the image data that was subjected to the image processing by the image processing unit, a small dot group having the generated history information embedded in the history information area is disposed at one or more positions indicated by the extracted coordinate position information.