Today marks a milestone for Camera Bits®: our first patent! US Patent no. 12,775,731,
Provenance Data Integrity Protection, issued October 27, 2026.
Although Camera Bits has made many innovations in digital photography over the last 30
years, we have held all this technology proprietary as “trade secrets”. There are a number
of reasons why we chose this path, such as the high cost of securing a patent and the
observation that many innovations were “obvious” (for those skilled in the practice) once
confronted with a challenge, thus reducing the likelihood that our creative solutions could
even be patented.
This changed when I tried to implement C2PA within Photo Mechanic. It became clear to
me shortly after we started looking into C2PA back in 2020 that Photo Mechanic’s multi-
user metadata editing workflows uniquely posed what seemed to be an insurmountable
showstopper: the loss of the exact original C2PA photo from the camera prior to any
metadata edits. It is a requirement when signing a C2PA photo to have the original parent
“ingredient” (unmodified original with valid signature).
For 2 ½ years I frustratingly tried to engineer a “workaround” to satisfy this strict
requirement to no avail. The only ways I could think of were “hacks” and unlikely to work-
out in practice (e.g. unrecognized/non-standard sidecar files for JPEGs). It wasn’t until
September 2022 that “the light bulb switched on” and I knew of a solution despite the idea
sounding absurd. So absurd, in fact, that when I tried to describe it to “those skilled in the
practice”, even they seemed confounded. That is when I realized this must be patented.
So now I know that patents are indeed costly. My attorney tells me that this fact alone
sends a message to others that Camera Bits really believes in our technology and is willing
to go to great expense to stand by it.
I must admit I’ve always dreamed of having a patent, partly because I was “jealous” of my
dad having written several patents (however his company paid for them not my dad and I
think all my dad received was a plaque and maybe a $100 bonus for the effort). I think he is
happily smiling down on me now and proud of the massive effort and expense that this
patent has demanded.
It is done, and Photo Mechanic® is now ready to protect your provenance.
You may have heard the saying that “Necessity is the Mother of Invention,” and my reply is
“Well, the Father’s name is Frustration.”
– Dennis Walker, inventor of the Provenance Locker™, Where Truth Can Safely Lie™
.