MUMBAI, India, May 1 -- Intellectual Property India has published a patent application (202641050585 A) filed by Srinivasa Ramanujan Institute Of Technology; Mr. M. Rami Reddy; R. Hemavathi; C. Adinarayana Reddy; and G. Harivardhan Reddy, Ananthapuramu, Andhra Pradesh, on April 21, for 'design and implementation of a color qr code based image steganography system for secure communication.'
Inventor(s) include Srinivasa Ramanujan Institute Technology; Mr. M. Rami Reddy; R. Hemavathi; C. Adinarayana Reddy; and G. Harivardhan Reddy.
The application for the patent was published on May 1, under issue no. 18/2026.
According to the abstract released by the Intellectual Property India: "Design and Implementation of a Color QR Code Based Image Steganography System for secure communication Abstract : Color Quick Response (CQR) codes represent an advanced form of traditional black-and-white QR codes and provide significantly higher data storage capacity by utilizing multiple color channels such as red, green, and blue for encoding information. Due to this increased capacity and structural complexity, color QR codes have become an effective medium for secure data transmission in modern digital communication systems. However, when sensitive data is directly stored in QR codes, it may be easily accessed by unauthorized users through simple scanning techniques. To overcome this limitation, this paper presents a secure information hiding approach that combines color QR codes with image steganography techniques to improve the confidentiality and protection of sensitive information. In the proposed method, the confidential message is first converted into a color QR code, which acts as a container capable of storing a large amount of data within a compact structure. After generating the color QR code, it is embedded into a digital cover image using a steganographic embedding process that modifies selected pixel values in a controlled manner. The embedding algorithm is carefully designed to minimize visual distortion so that the resulting stego image appears almost identical to the original cover image and does not reveal the presence of hidden information to human observers. This technique takes advantage of the redundancy present in digital images, allowing the secret data to be concealed without significantly affecting image quality. During the decoding stage, the receiver retrieves the hidden QR code from the stego image through a reverse extraction process and then decodes the color QR code to reconstruct the original confidential message accurately. In order to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of the proposed approach, several image quality assessment metrics are used, including Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), and Mean Squared Error (MSE). These metrics help measure the similarity between the cover image and the generated stego image, ensuring that the embedding process does not introduce noticeable visual degradation. Experimental analysis demonstrates that the proposed technique achieves high PSNR values, very low MSE values, and SSIM values close to one, indicating that the visual quality of the stego image is well preserved while maintaining secure data hiding capabilities. The results confirm that integrating color QR code technology with image steganography provides a reliable and efficient solution for protecting confidential information and enhancing the security of digital communication systems. This approach can be applied in various domains such as secure data sharing, digital authentication, confidential communication, and information protection, where maintaining both data security and image quality is essential."
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