1. A method for creating a watermark in a target document at different stages of the target document life cycle, the method comprising: scanning the target document containing a target watermark; recovering the target watermark from the target document, the recovered target watermark indicating a template specification for describing how the watermark was merged into the target document; generating an additional watermark according to a watermark specification; updating the template specification by adding the watermark specification and associating the additional watermark with the watermark specification in the template specification; and merging the generated watermark with the scanned target document.