Journey

The department provides comprehensive contract support across EMEA, drafting, reviewing, and negotiating a broad array of agreements to ensure that Canon’s IP rights and brand integrity are safeguarded. These agreements cover areas such as marketing, IT, and non-disclosure arrangements. We work in close collaboration with CEL’s commercial legal teams, national sales organizations, and the Global Contracts team to support commercial transactions and ensure that IP-related risks are effectively managed. We contribute to enhancing IP literacy by offering IP insights and training to colleagues across the region. A key part of the department’s role involves ensuring that contracts with customers and suppliers are structured to protect Canon’s IP rights and minimizing the risk of infringing on others’ intellectual property. In addition, the IP department facilitates the licensing and acquisition of software development tools to developers of print and information management solutions, including internal IT teams within customer organizations. This enables Canon’s software products to operate seamlessly across a wide variety of IT environments in EMEA, helping Canon and its partners meet the evolving needs of business and enterprise customers.

We also play a central role in supporting Canon’s marketing and brand functions across EMEA. Given the region’s vast geographical and cultural diversity, the work is dynamic and engaging, involving collaboration with stakeholders in dozens of countries as well as spanning a wide range of legal systems, business cultures, and regulatory environments.

We assist in the creation, management, and use of high-quality marketing content that resonates with diverse audiences while respecting third-party rights. We guide Canon group companies to manage their global trademark portfolios in line with Canon’s policies and best practices, with a view to protecting key local brand assets. In order to maintain and further improve the brand’s strength in the EMEA region, which is made up of various countries and regions with different cultures and values, the department, as a member of the Canon EMEA Brand Management Committee, evaluates and provides advice regarding marketing proposals from group companies throughout the EMEA region. This includes supporting the development of partnerships and sponsorships with creators, businesses (eg: companies in other industries who are willing to support the promotion of Canon’s products and brand), events, and charitable organizations from various backgrounds. For example, when creating marketing campaigns using well-known characters from movie franchises, we provide advice and proposals to secure usage rights. Through collaborations with these organizations, we aim to expand awareness of Canon’s products to new audiences within EMEA markets. Throughout these efforts, they remain focused on protecting the reputation, integrity, and heritage of Canon’s globally recognized brand in the diverse EMEA region.

The department also works to develop anti-counterfeit and enforcement strategies in the EMEA region. In the area of enforcement, we lead Canon Europe’s anti-counterfeit and IP protection efforts across more than 70 countries in the EMEA region. Given the vast geographical scope, the enforcement strategies are tailored to the specific legal and operational characteristics of each country and region. Figure 1 shows the regions where counterfeit products were seized, with the size of the circles illustrating the quantity of the seizure. We work closely with business colleagues in Regional Sales HQs within the EMEA region such as Canon Middle East (CME) and Canon Central & North Africa (CCNA) to gather intelligence on possible suspicious activities in the market.