Digimarc

Digimarc is a company that creates digital watermarks for other companies. It was founded by Geoff Rhoads in 1995 in Portland, Oregon. It is now based in Beaverton, Oregon, with offices in Germany, Japan, England, and New York.

Digimarc arose as a spin-out from Rhoads's previous company Signet, which he founded in 1994. Signet was also focused on digital watermarking. In 1995, Rhoads and three other Signet employees founded Digimarc in Portland and quickly began developing its first image copyright communication products. Digimarc released its first product the next year in 1996, a software plug-in for applying digital watermarks to images. In 1997, the company was awarded its first patent for digital watermarking.

In 2001, Digimarc acquired a division of Polaroid Corporation and used its technology to establish Digimarc ID Systems, an identification card business, which eventually helped to begin enhancement of driver licenses in thirty-seven states. The first state to issue enhanced drivers licenses using Digimarc's technology was Michigan, in 2003. Digimarc ID Systems soon became the second biggest user of fingerprint and facial matching technology, next to the US government. Digimarc sold Digimarc ID Systems for $315 million in 2008 and began to identify and target new industries to support, including content protection and media enhancement. In 2010, Digimarc developed the Intuitive Computing Platform suite, which later evolved into Digimarc Barcode, a program for companies to manage and create barcodes.

In 2015, Digimarc Barcode was picked up by its first retail customer, Wegmans Food Markets. The following year, New Seasons Market began using Digimarc Barcode. In 2017, Bizerba also adopted the program. Digimarc Barcode was approved by the USDA in 2019 for the use of disclosing GMOs in products.

2020 was a year of widespread recognition for Digimarc. Homes & Land added Digimarc technology to 27 million magazines in 150 U.S. metro markets; Digimarc's technology powered Walmart's toy catalog's "Scan & Shop" feature for the second year in a row; and Digimarc received, in conjunction with Netto Marken-Discount, the ‘Top Supplier Retail 2020’ award from the German-based EHI Retail Institute in honor of the two companies's partnership.

Digital watermarks are a way to label a company's products with various information about both the product and company. Digital watermarks can be applied on product packaging, digital products like photos and movies, documents, and more. There are many reasons to use digital watermarks on products, such as copyright and piracy protection, supply chain traceability, document security, and sorting recycling.

To apply digital watermarks on products, Digimarc uses the same numeric data that comes from barcodes and applies it all over the product packaging. It takes the packaging image and splits it into four different color channels of digital watermarks and seamlessly combines them to create one picture, resulting in an unobtrusive and essentially invisible watermark. Digital watermarks allow the entire product packaging to be scanned and read through appropriate means (apps, handheld scanners, inventory robots, and smart cameras.) Scanning a digital watermark can pull up various identifying information behind the product and company.

Digimarc Mobile Software Development Kit, or SDK, is a device that pairs with Digimarc's mobile scanning app to assist in easier, faster, and more accurate barcode scanning. The device holds the user's smartphone for precision. Pairing the two devices enables the phone's app to scan products from up to four feet away. It can scan hard to read barcodes that have glares or reflections, wrinkles, and more.

Digimarc Verify is a desktop software intended for premedia and print professionals that validates the location and consistency of the company's barcodes on packaging. It is also capable of providing guidance on the suitability of the barcode's location for case uses such as retail checkout scanning.