What’s new: NXP® Semiconductors has added a new tool, eIQ® Model Watermarking, to its eIQ Toolkit for machine learning development. eIQ Model Watermarking is the industry’s first effective tool to help developers protect their machine learning investments. The tool embeds a watermark in a machine learning model, adding copyright ownership to the model and allowing developers to prove that a machine learning model is a copy or clone of their model IP without requiring access to that model’s code.

Why it matters: It’s been said that data is the new gold, and nowhere is that more true than in machine learning, where a model’s quality heavily depends on the quality of the data it is trained with, and domain expertise is critical in creating highly efficient models. Though they are a valuable and differentiating asset to a company, machine learning models typically lack the copyright protection that protects ordinary software from unauthorized copying or cloning. eIQ Model Watermarking allows developers to copyright their machine learning models, while also enabling developers to detect unauthorized use and protect their unique IP.

More details: “Developers invest huge amounts of time and resources in creating optimal models and it is important that they are able to protect that investment,” said Ali Osman Ors, Director, Global AI and Machine Learning Strategy and Technologies at NXP Semiconductors. “The eIQ Model Watermarking tool allows them to copyright their machine learning models and to prove whether a particular model is a copy or a clone in order to protect their IP investment.”

The eIQ Model Watermarking tool is designed to work with any vision-based machine learning model creation. It is included as part of the eIQ Toolkit for machine learning development.