Patent ID: 8312031

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for generating a complex signature of a multimedia data element, comprising: partitioning the multimedia data element recursively until a minimum size multimedia data element is reached; generating a first signature and second signature for each minimum size multimedia data element, wherein the first and second signatures are generated by a plurality of computational cores that process each of the plurality of minimum size multimedia data elements, each core having properties that have at least some statistical independency from other of the computational cores, the properties are independent of each other core, wherein the properties of each of the plurality of computational cores include a first threshold and a second threshold, each of the plurality of computational cores generates responsive to each of the minimum size multimedia data elements the first signature and the second signature, wherein the first signature is generated respective of a robust selection criterion and a first threshold, and the second signature is generated respective of a second threshold, wherein the first threshold is higher than the second threshold, the first signature is a robust to signature; assembling at least a complex signature comprising a plurality of the first and second signatures of the minimum size multimedia data elements; and storing the first and second signatures of each of the minimum size multimedia data elements and the complex signature of the multimedia data element in association with the multimedia data element and partitions thereof in a storage unit.