Patent ID: 7970165

Claim:
A circuit for embedding watermarks, the circuit comprising: a quantizer to limit a data value provided by a signal input to a set of values; a rounder unit coupled to the quantizer, the rounder unit configured to round a quantized data value to a nearest integer; a control unit coupled to the rounder unit and to a watermark input, the control unit configured to provide a control signal based on the rounded, quantized data value and a parity of a watermark provided by the watermark input; and a multiplexer having a first input coupled to the rounder unit and a control input coupled to the control unit, the multiplexer configured to select between an output of the rounder unit when the parity of the rounded, quantized data value and the parity of a bit of the watermark are the same, and an incremented output of the rounder unit or a decremented output of the rounder unit when the parity of the rounded, quantized data value and the parity of the bit of the watermark are different, based on the control signal provided by the control unit.