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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/audio-and-video-watermarking-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Content Provenance & WatermarkingAudio and Video Watermarking Patents: Who Holds the Core Claims
- 46.8% concentration. The five leading assignees hold 230 of 491 records in scope — filings are concentrated at the top with a long tail below tenth place.
- Video claims dominate. H04N pictorial-communication classifications cover 48.9% of records, ahead of G10L speech/audio at 42.2% — video-side embedding and detection are the denser claim space.
- Filing has cooled from its 2021 peak. Volume ran from 22 records in 2021 to 18 in 2024, an 18% pullback over that span, though 2025-26 counts are still filling in as publication catches up to filing.
491
Published Records
47%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-18%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (22 records) with 2024 (18) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 491 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Field Overview
What this landscape covers
Audio and video watermarking spans the techniques used to embed, recover and defend imperceptible identifiers inside media content — from perceptual masking that hides a payload below the threshold of human detection to synchronization recovery after transcoding, cropping or camcording. The 491 records in scope run from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off and sit at the intersection of signal processing, content protection and broadcast/streaming delivery.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than the actual filing activity turns out to be once records catch up.
Filing activity and technology composition, 2015-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Audio and Video Watermarking covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The Numbers
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 491-record dataset: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Annual filings rose to a peak of 22 records in 2021, then eased to 18 by 2024 — an 18% decline over that three-year window. 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag and should not be read as a continued drop.
IPC subclass composition
H04N (pictorial communication) appears on 48.9% of the 491 records, G10L (speech and audio) on 42.2%, and G06T (image data processing) on 36.5%. Since a single record can carry several IPC classes, these shares sum to well over 100% and should be read individually against the 491-record total, not against each other as a pie.
Shares are the percentage of the 491 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Audio and Video Watermarking covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
Go deeper on Audio and Video Watermarking with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about audio and video watermarking and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaPrior Art To Know
Key patents shaping the field
Representative Filing
Video watermarking method and apparatus, and video content protecting method and apparatus using video watermarking
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
Provided are a video watermarking method and apparatus and a video content protecting method and apparatus using video watermarking. The method includes detecting scene transition in a video sequence, calculating an image complexity in a scene using one or more frames included in the scene and determining a watermark embedding strength for the scene, and embedding a watermark into the video sequence according to the watermark embedding strength.Filed by Samsung Electronics, published 2005-12-01. Its scene-adaptive embedding-strength approach recurs as a reference point across later filings that tie payload strength to local image complexity.
Most-cited records in this dataset
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6411725B1 | Watermark enabled video objects | 999 |
| 2 | US6385329B1 | Wavelet domain watermarks | 539 |
| 3 | US20060239501A1 | Security enhancements of digital watermarks for multi-media content | 384 |
| 4 | US7050603B2 | Watermark encoded video, and related methods | 311 |
| 5 | US20140108020A1 | Multi-mode audio recognition and auxiliary data encoding and decoding | 246 |
| 6 | US20060239503A1 | System reactions to the detection of embedded watermarks in a digital host content | 236 |
| 7 | US20140142958A1 | Multi-mode audio recognition and auxiliary data encoding and decoding | 231 |
| 8 | US6539095B1 | Audio watermarking to convey auxiliary control information, and media embodying same | 215 |
| 9 | US7369677B2 | System reactions to the detection of embedded watermarks in a digital host content | 214 |
| 10 | US20020120849A1 | Parallel processing of digital watermarking operations | 202 |
Citation counts favour older filings simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations inside this corpus — treat them as a signal of influence on later work, not as a measure of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Audio and Video Watermarking covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the data says about where this field stands
Three read-outs from the same 491-record set: concentration among assignees, where the claim density actually sits, and how citation weight is distributed.
Concentration
46.8%
of 491 records held by top 5
Five assignees hold nearly half the field
The leading assignee alone accounts for 77 records, and the top five combined reach 230 of 491 records in scope. The gap to tenth place (10 records) shows a long tail of smaller filers below the leaders rather than a broad, even spread.
Assignee ranking, 100 companies
Claim density
48.9%
of records classified under H04N
Video-side pictorial communication is the densest branch
H04N (pictorial communication) covers 240 of 491 records, ahead of G10L speech/audio synthesis at 207 records and G06T image processing at 179. New video-embedding claims are more likely to run into existing prior art than audio-only ones.
IPC subclass shares, multi-label
Influence
999 citations
on the most-cited record in scope
Citation weight sits with early foundational filings
The most-cited records in this dataset date from the early 2000s and cover core watermark-embedding and wavelet-domain techniques. Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings by construction, so treat them as markers of foundational influence rather than current activity.
Top five cited records
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to audio and video watermarking, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Audio and Video Watermarking covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Competitive Landscape
Who is filing, and where the openings sit
The ranked leaders sit atop a long tail: 100 companies appear in the assignee ranking, but over half of all activity concentrates in the top ten.
Leader position
77 records
leading assignee
A clear single leader, then a steep drop
The top-ranked assignee holds 77 records against 27 at fifth place and 10 at tenth — the drop-off from leader to fifth is sharper than the drop from fifth to tenth, suggesting one dominant portfolio rather than a tight cluster at the top.
Assignee ranking, 491 records
Top 10 share
58.5%
of 491 records held by top 10
Just over half the field sits with ten companies
287 of 491 records belong to the ten leading assignees. Below that line, filing activity spreads thinly across the remaining ranked companies, many with only a handful of records each.
Top 10 concentration
Co-filing
10 pairs
co-assignee pairings identified
Co-assignment is limited and inventor-anchored
The strongest co-assignee links in this dataset run through named inventors rather than joint corporate ventures, with the top pairing appearing on 8 shared records. Cross-company joint filing is not a major feature of this field.
Co-assignee pairs, strongest linkages
Recent filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Digimarc Corporation | 0 | — |
| Koninklijke Philips N.V. | 0 | — |
| Verance Corporation | 0 | — |
| Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Forderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. | 0 | — |
| Thomson Licensing | 0 | — |
| CAPRICODE OY | 0 | — |
| Capricode Oy | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Audio and Video Watermarking covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Next Steps
Where to take this analysis
The concentration and composition figures above point to specific next questions for an IP or R&D team working in this space.
Map claims against the top five portfolios
With 46.8% of records held by five assignees, a freedom-to-operate check on any new embedding or extraction method should start with those portfolios before the wider ranked list.
Explore assignee portfolios in EurekaCheck the under-claimed branches before drafting
H04K secret/jamming-channel filings sit at 5.1% of records, well below H04N and G10L — worth confirming whether that reflects real technical difficulty or an open filing opportunity.
Run a white-space search in EurekaTrack filings past the 2024 complete-year mark
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, 2025-26 counts will keep rising; re-check momentum by assignee once those years settle before drawing conclusions about a slowdown.
Set up filing alerts in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Audio and Video Watermarking covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on watermarking patents
The assignee ranking for this dataset covers 100 companies across 491 records, and the leading assignee alone holds 77 of them. The top five combined account for 230 records, or 46.8% of all records in scope, while the gap down to tenth place (10 records) shows a long tail of smaller filers rather than an even spread. This concentration means a freedom-to-operate review should prioritise the top few portfolios first rather than treating the field as fragmented.
By IPC classification, video-side pictorial communication (H04N) appears on 48.9% of the 491 records, ahead of speech and audio analysis/synthesis (G10L) at 42.2%. Because a single filing can carry both classifications, this does not mean audio watermarking is neglected — many filings claim techniques that apply to both media types. It does suggest that new video-only embedding claims face denser prior art than audio-only ones.
Filing activity peaked at 22 records in 2021 and had eased to 18 records by 2024, an 18% decline over that three-year window. Figures for 2025 and 2026 are still incomplete because patent publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so those most recent years should not yet be read as continued decline. A clearer read on the current trajectory will only be possible once those years finish publishing.
This Samsung Electronics filing from 2005 describes a video watermarking method that detects scene transitions, calculates image complexity within each scene, and adjusts the watermark's embedding strength accordingly before embedding it into the video sequence. It is a representative example of scene-adaptive embedding strength control, a technique that recurs as a reference point in later filings tying payload robustness to local image complexity. Anyone drafting new claims around adaptive embedding strength in video should review this filing and its citing art as part of a design-around analysis.
The IPC composition data shows H04K (secret and jamming communication) at only 5.1% of the 491 records, well below H04N and G10L, which points to comparatively lighter claim density around covert or jamming-resistant watermark transport. Sub-areas such as camcording-attack resilient re-synchronization and cross-codec transcoding survival for audio payloads also show lighter representation relative to the core embedding and extraction claims. These figures indicate where claim space is less occupied, not that the underlying technical problems are unsolved, so a proper prior-art search is still required before filing.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Audio and Video Watermarking covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company's registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.