History of digital watermarking

The term "Digital Watermark"... 

This was first introduced in 1992 by Andrew Tirkel and Charles Osborne, in their paper: A.Z.Tirkel, G.A. Rankin, R.M. Van Schyndel, W.J.Ho, N.R.A.Mee, C.F.Osborne. “Electronic Water Mark”. DICTA 93, Macquarie University. p.666-673.I

The famous term was used by in Japan by Tirkel and Osborne. This was from the Japanese-- "denshi sukashi" -- literally, an "electronic watermark".

Paul Levinson Future of the Information Revolution (1997), where he called for the use "smart patent numbers" (p. 202), or the embedding of electronic chips in every piece of technology, which would give an updated listing of all of its inventors.

Whereas a digital watermark can be a form of steganography, e.g., the digital watermark is hidden in plain view. Functionally, the term "digital watermark" is used to describe that which enables differentiation between copies of the "same" content in an imperceptible manner. Many watermarking systems take this a step further, hiding the data so that attempts at erasure results in degradation of the quality of the content.