The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 21, 2010
Filed:
Jun. 29, 2006
Asmus Hetzel, Berlin, DE;
Ivan Q. Peyrot, San Jose, CA (US);
Asmus Hetzel, Berlin, DE;
Ivan Q. Peyrot, San Jose, CA (US);
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A method for watermarking a circuit design layout based on frequency or number of geometric structures. The method includes dividing a circuit design layout into a plurality of segments or tiles. Certain segments are selected, and within these selected segments, a router alters the number of geometric structures, such as vias and jogs, of the circuit design layout in the selected segments to form the watermark without relying on a netlist. The number of geometric structures is changed slightly so that a random sampling of segments would not identify the watermark since the variations would not be detectable or would be within acceptable variances, but the watermark would be readily identified if the selected segments are known. The watermark or portions thereof can be used to encode one or more data bits.