Patent ID: 8508805

Claim:
An image processing apparatus, comprising: an image data generation unit configured to generate image data that includes a digital watermark, by embedding, in a least significant bit plane of original image data including a plurality of bit planes, at least one piece of digital watermark information and control information including both user-specific information for authenticating a user who requests output of said original image data and user-by-user digital watermark information indicating digital watermark information to be output on a user-by-user basis, and thereby generating image data that includes a digital watermark; and an output control unit configured to select said digital watermark information in accordance with said user based on said user-specific information and said user-by-user digital watermark information embedded in the image data, and combining a digital watermark based on the selected digital watermark information with said original image data for outputting, wherein said original image data is RGB data consisting of RGB color components; and said image data generation unit includes: a separating unit configured to separate said RGB data into a plurality of bit planes of each color component, a control information embedding unit configured to embed said control information to the least significant bit plane of any of R data, B data and G data, and a digital watermark embedding unit configured to embed said digital watermark information to the least significant bit plane of any of R data, B data and G data not having the control information embedded, wherein said at least one piece of digital watermark information includes a first piece of digital watermark information and a second piece of digital watermark information; and said digital watermark embedding unit includes: a first embedding unit configured to embed said first piece of digital watermark information into the least significant bit plane of any of R data, B data and G data not having the control information embedded, and a second embedding unit configured to embed said second piece of digital watermark information into the least significant bit plane of any of R data, B data and G data having neither the control information nor the first piece of digital watermark information embedded.