Imaging Technology Corporation to Integrate Digimarc Watermarking into its Identity Document Production and Inspection Solutions.

Business/High Tech Editors

TUALATIN, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 20, 2000

Digimarc Corporation (Nasdaq:DMRC) today announced that Imaging Technology Corporation will integrate Digimarc's digital watermark technology into its suite of identity document issuance and inspection system products.

Digimarc has developed patented digital watermark technology that enables imperceptible digital watermarks called Identity Document Marks to be added to identity documents such as passports, national ID cards, and high-security government access cards. ITC is a leading producer of ID imaging systems with a customer base that includes the Pentagon, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Department of Defense, Lockheed-Martin Corporation and more than 25 state, province and national drivers license programs worldwide, including Indonesia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Russia, Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica, Zambia, Nigeria and Mexico. ITC will deliver Digimarc's Identity Document Mark technology as a standard feature in its ID document issuance and inspection systems.

"Identity Document Marks are a covert security feature that easily integrates with our systems and is compatible with traditional security features that are already used in these documents," said Charles Benz, chief executive officer at ITC. "Identity Document Marks offer a powerful defense to help our customers combat the digital counterfeiting and forgery threat."

Identity Document Marks are imperceptible under normal use but easily read by Digimarc's proprietary software combined with a consumer-grade scanner or specialized document reader.

"Digimarc's Identity Document Marks are an effective deterrent to the growing digital counterfeiting and forgery threat," said J. Scott Carr, vice president and general manager of Digimarc's Secure Documents business. "Integrating our Identity Document Mark technology into ITC's system solutions will enable ITC to offer enhanced document authentication and verification to their government customers."

Identity Document Marks enable issuers of secure documents to combat the growing digital counterfeiting and forgery threat. These digital watermarks carry data that can be specific to the document, such as document number, place/date of issue, or expiration date -- or specific to the owner of the document, such as birth date, biometric or biographical data. Identity Document Marks are extremely durable -- surviving printing, laminations and binding during the production of the document and normal usage over the life of the document.

"We're pleased to add ITC to our strong group of identity document partners," said Bruce Davis, Digimarc CEO. "Working with solution providers like ITC, we are able to bring Identity Document Marks to issuers of secure documents to help thwart a new breed of digital counterfeiters attempting to commit crimes using PC technology."

About Digimarc

Digimarc (Nasdaq:DMRC) is the world leader in digital watermark technology and applications that allow imperceptible digital code to be embedded in media content regardless of whether the content is distributed in analog or digital format. Using its proprietary technology, Digimarc has created Digimarc MediaBridge -- a fundamentally new way to access the Internet. Digimarc MediaBridge enables magazines and other printed media to become a direct bridge to relevant information on the Internet. Advertisements and editorial featuring a Digimarc symbol in the outer page corner will contain an imperceptible code which when held up to an image-capture device such as a PC camera, will launch a browser and instantly connect readers to a dedicated URL. Digimarc also provides anti-counterfeiting solutions to the world's leading central banks and image commerce technologies to leading stock photo agencies and major corporations. For more information about Digimarc, please visit our Web site at www.digimarc.com.

About ITC

Imaging Technology Corporation (ITC) is the worldwide leader in the development of digital imaging software for photo identification documents. ITC produces computerized systems for the production of photo ID documents for driver's licenses, voter registration programs, national ID programs, passport programs and government, industrial, university and security programs. ITC was founded in 1994 with the acquisition of the imaging division of Synergistics, Inc. ITC, with thousands of imaging software licenses operating on computer workstations throughout the world, has user friendly, leading edge software technology that has satisfied the most demanding applications and the most stringent reliability standards.

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(c) 2000 Digimarc Corporation. All rights reserved.

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