Recycling methods and systems, and related plastic containers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11962875-B2
Application number	US-202117371964-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 9, 2021
Priority date	Jan 31, 2014
Publication date	Apr 16, 2024
Grant date	Apr 16, 2024

Abstract

A plastic item, such as a beverage bottle, conveys two distinct digital watermarks, encoded using two distinct signaling protocols. A first, printed label watermark conveys a retailing payload, including a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) used by a point-of-sale scanner in a retail store to identify and price the item when presented for checkout. A second, plastic texture watermark conveys a recycling payload, including data identifying the composition of the plastic. The use of two different signaling protocols assures that a point-of-sale scanner will not spend its limited time and computational resources working to decode the recycling watermark, which lacks the data needed for retail checkout. In some embodiments, a recycling apparatus makes advantageous use of both types of watermarks to identify the plastic composition of the item (e.g., relating GTIN to plastic type using an associated database), thereby increasing the fraction of items that are correctly identified for sorting and recycling. A great number of other features and arrangements are also detailed.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method of sorting plastic items in a material stream, including the acts:
decoding first plural-symbol payload information from a machine-readable indicia on a first item, the decoded first plural-symbol payload information including a plastic recycling code indicating a type of plastic used in the first item;
sorting the first item from said waste stream based on said plastic recycling code included in the first plural-symbol payload information;
decoding second plural-symbol payload information from a machine-readable indicia on a second item, the decoded second plural-symbol payload information omitting a plastic recycling code, but including an identifier code;
based on said identifier code, obtaining a corresponding plastic recycling code from a database; and
sorting the second item from said waste stream based on the plastic recycling code obtained from the database;
said method also including decoding the first plural-symbol payload information from the first item using a first decoding algorithm, and decoding the second plural-symbol payload information from the second item using a second decoding algorithm, the method further including sorting the first item to a first destination based on said plastic recycling code included in the first plural-symbol payload information, and sorting the second item to a second destination based on said plastic recycling code obtained from the database, wherein:
the second destination is the same as the first destination;
the first item and the second item are two instances of a same type of item;
each of said first item and said second item is marked with both a first machine-readable indicia and a second machine-readable indicia, the first machine-readable indicia being formed by a first process and the second machine-readable indicia being formed by a second process different than the first process, said first machine-readable indicia employing a first signaling protocol and the second machine readable indicia employing a second signaling protocol different than the first signaling protocol; and
the first decoding algorithm is different than the second decoding algorithm, said difference including that the first decoding algorithm is adapted to read machine-readable indicia employing the first signaling protocol, and the second decoding algorithm is adapted to read machine-readable indicia employing the second signaling protocol that is different than the first signaling protocol;
wherein an item can be sorted from the material stream based on reading of either the first or second machine-readable indicia, by said respective first or second decoding algorithm; and
wherein the first machine-readable indicia comprises a first digital watermark, and the second machine-readable indicia comprises a second digital watermark.

2. A product container manufactured of plastic and including a first digital watermark pattern employing a first signaling protocol, a plural-symbol payload of said first digital watermark pattern conveying data indicating a type of plastic from which the product container is manufactured, characterized in that the product container additionally includes a second digital watermark pattern employing a second signaling protocol different than the first signaling protocol, the plural-symbol payload of said second digital watermark pattern also conveying data indicating the type of plastic from which the product container is manufactured, wherein the first digital watermark pattern and the second digital watermark pattern differ in signaling protocol, yet both are useful for plastic recycling;
the first digital watermark pattern is encoded as a 3D texture pattern in a surface of the product container, and the second digital watermark pattern is encoded as a pattern of printed variations in local luminance or chrominance on a printed label conveyed by the product container;
the first digital watermark pattern encodes a plural-symbol payload P1 for sensing by a recycling apparatus, the first digital watermark pattern including a first reference signal comprising a first constellation of peaks in a 2D Fourier magnitude domain;
the second digital watermark pattern encodes a plural-symbol payload P2 that is different than P1, for sensing by a point-of-sale scanner in a retail store, the second digital watermark pattern including a second reference signal comprising a second constellation of peaks in the 2D Fourier magnitude domain different than the first constellation of peaks; and
the first constellation of peaks in the first reference signal prevents a point-of-sale scanner that is attempting to read the plural-symbol payload P2 in a retail store from attempting to decode a payload from the first digital watermark pattern.

3. The product container of claim 2 in which the first digital watermark pattern is formed by 3D surface texturing, and the second digital watermark pattern is formed by ink printing, wherein the first digital watermark pattern and the second digital watermark pattern differ in formation and signaling protocol.

4. The product container of claim 3 having front and back sides, wherein the first digital watermark pattern formed by 3D surface texturing is present on both the front and back sides, and wherein the second digital watermark pattern formed by ink printing is present on both the front and back sides.

5. The product container of claim 3 in which the plural-symbol payload of said second digital watermark pattern also conveys additional data indicating to a point of sale apparatus at least a name and a price for an item sold in said product container, the plural-symbol payload of the first digital watermark pattern lacking at least some of said additional data, wherein the first digital watermark pattern and the second digital watermark pattern differ in formation, payload and signaling protocol.

6. The product container of claim 2 wherein some but not all of the peaks in the first constellation overlap with peaks in the second constellation.

7. The product container of claim 2 wherein none of the peaks in the first constellation overlaps with a peak in the second constellation.

8. The product container of claim 7 wherein each of the peaks in the second constellation lies on a different radial line in a 2D Fourier magnitude plot of the second reference signal, and none of the peaks in the first constellation lies on one of said radial lines.

9. The product container of claim 2 in which the plural-symbol payload of the second digital watermark pattern indicates said type of plastic by indicating a record in a database containing information about said type of plastic.

10. A recycling method that includes the acts:
receiving imagery depicting items in a material stream;
extracting first digital watermark payload data, comprising plural symbols, from imagery depicting a first item in said material stream;
based on the first digital watermark payload data, determining that the first item is made with a first type of plastic;
extracting second digital watermark payload data, comprising plural symbols, from imagery depicting a second item in said material stream;
based on the second digital watermark payload data, determining that the second item is made with a second type of plastic; and
sorting said first item and said second item from the material stream based on said determined types of plastic;
wherein each of said first item and said second item is marked with two different types of watermark patterns, namely (a) a first type of watermark pattern printed on either the item or on a label applied to the item, said first type of watermark pattern employing a first signaling protocol, and (b) a

Assignees

• Digimarc Corp

Inventors

• Sharma Ravi K
• Filler Tomas
• Holub Vojtech
• Alattar Osama M
• Brunk Hugh L
• Lord John D

Classifications

• G06F21/16 Primary

  Program or content traceability, e.g. by watermarking · CPC title

• H04N23/00 Primary

  Cameras or camera modules comprising electronic image sensors; Control thereof · CPC title

• G09C5/00

  Ciphering apparatus or methods not provided for in the preceding groups, e.g. involving the concealment or deformation of graphic data such as designs, written or printed messages · CPC title

• H04N21/23892

  involving embedding information at multiplex stream level, e.g. embedding a watermark at packet level · CPC title

• H04N21/44008

  involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream (arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59) · CPC title