Patent ID: 8325970

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: an obtaining unit that obtains an adding method by which additional information is to be added to image data in which content information is already contained; a setting unit that sets an area to which the additional information is to be added based on the adding method and the content information; and an adding unit that adds the additional information to the area by the adding method; wherein the adding method includes a watermark method adding a watermark pattern and a coding method adding code data as the additional information, the setting unit sets a content area, so as to contain the content information therein; a watermark area for adding the watermark pattern therein, so as to include the content area within the watermark area; and a code area, all around the watermark area, for adding the code data therein, so as not to overlap the content area, and so as for the code data not to overlap the watermark area, and wherein the additional information includes at least one of type information representing a type of the image data and record information representing an output record of the image data.