Common refrains heard within Canon’s research and development division include, “Read patent bulletins rather than research literature” and “Create draft patents rather than reports.
Intellectual property management protects proprietary technologies while expanding the number of technologies that Canon can access through such means as cross-licensing to enhance product development capabilities.

April 30, 2025

#Fundamentals That Raise the Value of Technology

Canon believes that acquiring patent rights for its proprietary technologies is an essential aspect of expanding operations globally. In the United States, Canon has been the top-ranked Japanese patent recipient for 20 straight years. Canon’s intellectual property strategy consists of a defensive approach: protecting Canon’s proprietary core technologies from being infringed upon by others, and an offensive approach: creating advantages for Canon’s operations by acquiring valuable patents that other companies, not just Canon, need to use, and then negotiating licenses for their use. Canon strengthens its product development capabilities through both defensive and offensive intellectual property management.

Canon’s emphasis on intellectual property rights dates back to the 1960s, when the company entered the copying machine market.
In order to break through the airtight patent wall that U.S.-based Xerox had erected for its copying machines, Canon succeeded in developing the NP method, an all-new electrophotographic technology that did not infringe on Xerox’s patents. Canon obtained a patent for the NP method. By protecting the differentiated proprietary technology, and also acquiring patents for peripheral technologies, Canon put itself in the position to be able to negotiate license agreements for other companies’ technologies that Canon needed. This experience created the foundation for Canon’s intellectual property strategy and has been passed down through the generations as part of Canon’s corporate DNA.

One major characteristic of Canon’s intellectual property strategy is the active exchange of communication between development engineers and patent engineers, who are in charge of intellectual property. Some 300 patent engineers at Canon operation sites throughout Japan examine new ideas and the research results of engineers from various angles, searching for ways to maximize the number of inventions that can be generated.

In this day and age, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a company to protect its technologies on its own. In a move to assert the company’s legitimacy and circumvent international patent disputes, Canon signed a cross-licensing agreement^* with Microsoft in July 2014. In addition, six companies, including Canon and Google, established the License On Transfer (LOT) Network. As of November 2018, 318 companies have joined as members to protect approximately 1.36 million patents. In this way, Canon is working to coordinate with other companies to strengthen its competitive edge internationally through intellectual property.
* In a cross-licensing agreement, patent-right holders (companies, etc.) grant a license to each other permitting the use of a patent or patents held by the other party.

Several Canon inventions have been awarded Japan’s National Commendation for Invention (sponsored by the Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation), presented in recognition of inventions of great merit in Japan. Additionally, Canon gives special recognition to the efforts of its own engineers and other meritorious individuals for their outstanding inventions through an Internal Invention Awards system.