The sale of NexGuard Labs to Kudelski last week almost certainly signals the beginning of a “muscling up” process to enter a patent war around watermarking. Kudelski’s Nagra is just one of a handful of companies which now controls a watermarking system and already this year one patent troll in the guise of US player Blue Spike, has raised an issue around patents relating to watermarks. Cisco has quietly tried to build its own patent base in watermarking, triggered by the certain knowledge that MovieLabs is requiring some form of forensic watermarking to protect 4K content. In the past MovieLabs requirements have been treated as a “suggested guideline” by a variety of studios and partners, but increasingly deals are really…