Canon has a total of 189070 patents globally, out of which 62318 have been granted. Of these 189070 patents, more than 80% patents are active. Japan is where Canon has filed the maximum number of patents, followed by United States of America and China, it has generated an annual revenue of $30.39 billion in the year 2020. Parallelly, Japan and Unites States of America seems to be the main focused R&D center and Japan is the origin country of Canon.
Canon was founded in the year 1937 by Goro Yoshida, Saburo Uchida, and Takeo Maeda. Headquartered in Tokyo, the Japanese multinational firm specialises in optical, image, and industrial products such as lenses, cameras, medical equipment, scanners, printers, and semiconductor production equipment. As of January 2022, Canon has a market cap of $25.76 Billion.
Do read about some of the most popular patents of Canon which have been covered by us in this article and also you can find Canon’s patents information, the worldwide patent filing activity and its patent filing trend over the years, and many other stats over Canon’s patent portfolio.
How many patents do the founders and the CEO of Canon have?
The founder Goro Yoshida, Saburo Uchida, and Takeo Maeda have 0,1 and 0 patents respectively. The CEO, Fujio Mitarai has 0 patents.
How many patents does Canon have?
Canon has a total of 189070 patents globally. These patents belong to 103517 unique patent families. Out of 189070 patents, 151695 patents are active.
How many Canon patents are Alive/Dead?
Worldwide Patents
Patent Families
How Many Patents did Canon File Every Year?
Are you wondering why there is a drop in patent filing for the last two years? It is because a patent application can take up to 18 months to get published. Certainly, it doesn’t suggest a decrease in the patent filing.
| Year of Patents Filing or Grant | Canon Applications Filed | Canon Patents Granted |
| 2011 | 15486 | 6136 |
| 2012 | 16857 | 2654 |
| 2013 | 17815 | 3032 |
| 2014 | 17364 | 7970 |
| 2015 | 16974 | 6602 |
| 2016 | 15853 | 8971 |
| 2017 | 15334 | 5985 |
| 2018 | 15995 | 5165 |
| 2019 | 14841 | 5970 |
| 2020 | 9213 | 5032 |
| 2021 | 3171 | 4735 |
| 2022 | – | 66 |
How Many Patents did Canon File in Different Countries?
Countries in which Canon Filed Patents
| Country | Patents |
| Japan | 99449 |
| United States Of America | 46740 |
| China | 14652 |
| Europe | 7280 |
| Korea (South) | 5958 |
| United Kingdom | 1426 |
| Germany | 1293 |
| Russia | 1137 |
| Taiwan | 1047 |
| India | 910 |
| Australia | 713 |
| Brazil | 580 |
| Viet Nam | 313 |
| Singapore | 302 |
| Austria | 255 |
| Hong Kong (S.A.R.) | 210 |
| Malaysia | 201 |
| Spain | 170 |
| Philippines | 150 |
| Canada | 137 |
| France | 127 |
| Indonesia | 106 |
| Thailand | 105 |
| Mexico | 99 |
| Turkey | 74 |
| Poland | 68 |
| Hungary | 47 |
| Chile | 40 |
| Portugal | 37 |
| Netherlands | 32 |
| Morocco | 29 |
| Denmark | 27 |
| Colombia | 20 |
| Eurasian Patent Organization | 18 |
| South Africa | 14 |
| Slovenia | 13 |
| Argentina | 9 |
| Cyprus | 7 |
| Serbia | 7 |
| Ukraine | 3 |
| Croatia | 3 |
| New Zealand | 2 |
| Israel | 2 |
| Belgium | 1 |
| Egypt | 1 |
| Kazakhstan | 1 |
| Montenegro | 1 |
| Norway | 1 |
| Sweden | 1 |
| Lithuania | 1 |
Where are Research Centres of Canon Patents Located?
10 Best Canon Patents
US9561013B2 is the most popular patent in the Canon portfolio. It has received 291 citations so far from companies like Hitachi Medical Corp, General Electric Company, and FujiFilm Corp.
Below is the list of 10 most cited patents of CANON:
| Publication Number | Count of Citing Patents |
| US9561013B2 | 291 |
| US7884918B2 | 253 |
| US20120146577A1 | 230 |
| US8184311B2 | 227 |
| US20140210281A1 | 213 |
| JP2011107823A | 213 |
| EP2339639A2 | 203 |
| US20130093842A1 | 202 |
| US7957020B2 | 198 |
| US20120236162A1 | 195 |
Which Companies are using Canon Patents to Advance their Research?
If patents or patents from a particular technology area of a company receive a lot of citations, it implies that the technology is being followed and incrementally innovated by the citing companies. It also indicates that citing companies are working on similar and closely related technologies.
The top citing companies in the Canon patent portfolio are Fuji, Samsung and Ricoh.
List of the top forward citing Companies –
| Company | Number of Patents |
| Fuji | 1135 |
| Samsung | 1087 |
| Ricoh | 969 |
| Sony | 698 |
| Toshiba | 685 |
| Konica Minolta | 681 |
| Epson | 628 |
| Kyocera | 502 |
| Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha | 442 |
| HP | 389 |
Count of 102 and 103 Type Rejections based on Canon Patents
Top Canon Patents used in Rejecting Most Patent Applications
| Patent Number | Count of Rejected Applications |
| US8080335B2 | 32 |
| US20130114100A1 | 27 |
| US8004702B2 | 18 |
| US8004189B2 | 17 |
| US20130105924A1 | 15 |
| US20110155893A1 | 15 |
| US8856684B2 | 13 |
| US7882149B2 | 13 |
| US7913189B2 | 13 |
| US8034248B2 | 13 |
| US20130321680A1 | 13 |
| US20140076878A1 | 13 |
| US20110169746A1 | 13 |
| US8736748B2 | 12 |
| US7997717B2 | 12 |
What Percentage of Canon US Patent Applications were Granted?
Canon (Excluding its subsidiaries) has filed 76578 patent applications at USPTO so far (Excluding Design and PCT applications). Out of these 60468 have been granted leading to a grant rate of 82.72%.
Below are the key stats of Canon patent prosecution at the USPTO.
Which Law Firms Filed Most US Patents for Canon?
| Law Firms | Total Applications | Success Rate |
| Venable Llp | 37509 | 89.84% |
| Canon U S A Inc Intellectual Property Division | 15922 | 83.84% |
| Rossi Kimms & Mcdowell Llp | 4169 | 83.10% |
| Fitzpatrick Cella Harper & Scinto | 3609 | 2.68% |
| Patent Docket Clerk | 3397 | 90.38% |
| Canon C O Carter Deluca & Farrell Llp | 1713 | 84.03% |
| Oblon Mcclelland Maier & Neustadt L L P | 947 | 87.13% |
| Locke Lord Llp | 628 | 81.66% |
| James J Daley | 495 | 26.42% |
| Fitzpatrick Cella Harper And Scinto | 441 | 0.71% |
During COVID 19 pandemic lockdown, Canon worked to provide proactive support from the aspect of intellectual property to overcome this crisis.
The “Intellectual Property Open Access Declaration Against COVID-19,” with 20 firms and universities as founding members, was announced on May 1, 2020. This declaration states that a corporation will not use its intellectual property rights to block any development, manufacture, or other operations aimed only at stopping COVID-19 infections from spreading. This allows for rapid production and other efforts aimed at halting the spread of COVID-19 without fear of infringing on intellectual property rights.
Some of Canon’s technology innovation is listed as below:
Video capture of celestial bodies: Still photography was the norm for celestial observation for a long time. Canon’s ultra-high-sensitivity CMOS sensor technology allowed researchers to capture movies of the vast sky and analyse changes in real time, paving the way for further ground-breaking discoveries about our ever-changing universe.
World’s first 1-megapixel sensor: Canon created the world’s first 1-megapixel SPAD Sensor, a gadget that converts light into electrical data. Canon stated in June 2020 that it has successfully built the world’s first 1-megapixel single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) image sensor, attracting worldwide interest. On 15 December 2021—it created a SPAD sensor with the world’s largest pixel count of 3.2 megapixels, a low-light imaging camera that achieves outstanding colour reproduction even in low-light conditions.
EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS COMING SOON!
What are Canon’s key innovation segments?
What Technologies are Covered by Canon?
The chart below distributes patents filed by Canon in different countries on the basis of the technology protected in patents. It also represents the markets where Canon thinks it’s important to protect particular technology inventions.
R&D Focus: How Canon search focus changed over the years?
EXCLUSIVE INSIGHTS COMING SOON!
Interested in knowing about the areas of innovation that are being protected by Canon?