US 11,942,099 B2
Audio watermarking for people monitoring
Alexander Topchy, New Port Richey, FL (US); Padmanabhan Soundararajan, Tampa, FL (US); and Venugopal Srinivasan, Tarpon Springs, FL (US)
Assigned to The Nielsen Company (US), LLC, New York, NY (US)
Filed by The Nielsen Company (US), LLC, New York, NY (US)
Filed on Dec. 29, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/565,167.
Application 17/565,167 is a continuation of application No. 16/426,979, filed on May 30, 2019, granted, now 11,250,865.
Application 16/426,979 is a continuation of application No. 14/332,055, filed on Jul. 15, 2014, granted, now 10,410,643, issued on Sep. 10, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2022/0122618 A1, Apr. 21, 2022
Int. Cl. G10L 19/018 (2013.01); H04H 60/45 (2008.01); G06F 21/10 (2013.01); H04H 60/51 (2008.01)
CPC G10L 19/018 (2013.01) [H04H 60/45 (2013.01); G06F 21/1063 (2023.08); H04H 60/51 (2013.01); H04H 2201/50 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An audience measurement meter comprising:
an acoustic sensor configured to sense audio in a vicinity of a monitored media device;
at least one processor;
memory having stored therein instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the audience measurement meter to be configured to:
detect a first watermark in a first audio signal obtained by the acoustic sensor, the first watermark to identify media presented by the monitored media device; and
process the first audio signal obtained by the acoustic sensor to determine whether a second watermark, different from the first watermark, is embedded in the first audio signal, transmission of the second watermark triggered based on a time of day, the second watermark identifying at least one of a mobile device or a user of the mobile device;
classify the second watermark as a media watermark or a people monitoring watermark based on a characteristic of the second watermark; and
report, when the second watermark is determined to be embedded in the first audio signal, at least one of the second watermark or information decoded from the second watermark to identify at least one of the mobile device or the user of the mobile device as exposed to the media presented by the monitored media device.