Digimarc and Mobile Data Systems (MDS) have signed a 10-year extension to their existing licensing agreement amidst growing interest in technologies that give camera phone users a convenient way to link from encoded print materials to associated sites and services on the Internet.

Encoding technologies provider, MDS, has been a Digimarc Mobile partner since 2006, and has developed a universal visual search decoder that can be integrated into mobile devices to read digital watermarks.

We are pleased to see the demand MDS is creating for print-to-web and visual search applications based on Digimarc’s technology,” says Stuart Rosove, general manager, Media & Entertainment, Digimarc. “Digimarc watermarking offers an easy way for mobile users to interact with traditional print media, such as advertisements, brochures and packaging. We are happy to support MDS’ business development efforts with this extended licensing agreement.”

“MDS is bringing visual search to the consumer market by enabling the interaction between printed media and web-based content,” explains Joseph Spiteri, founder and CEO of Mobile Data Systems. “We see digital watermarking as the optimal technology to provide this connection and recent improvements to camera phone optics are enabling this interaction to come into focus today. This is clearly the solution to mobile marketing’s call-to-action.”