Bethesda, MD, May 22, 2001 -ContentGuard, Inc., a leading provider of comprehensive, flexible Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions, today announced that it has been awarded U.S. Patent No. 6,233,684, titled "System for Controlling the Distribution and Use of Rendered Digital Works through Watermarking". The priority date of the patent is February 28, 1997. The patented invention covers the inclusion of watermark information in digital content when the content is rendered through a printer (trusted printing), audio player, video player, computer screen or other types of rendering systems. An advantage of the invention is that it enhances content protection by providing persistent watermark information into rendered content during the rendering process. The watermarking protection described in the invention can be layered with other forms of watermarking and associated with the same digital content. The combination of watermarking and other DRM technologies provides excellent information identification, usage tracking and content protection tools for the content owners and content providers in the digital age. ContentGuard's patent portfolio includes very early foundation patents in DRM based on research originally developed at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Patent 6,233,684 continues to complement the already robust patent portfolio in the areas of DRM and trusted systems. Readers are advised that the patented invention mentioned here is described in simple language. The description is not meant to cover all aspects and interpretations of the inventions and disclosures in the patent document. The description is not intended for any legal interpretations, scope analysis, or evaluation of its claims or specifications.