Canon Ranks 5th In U.S. and 1st In Japan In Patents Awarded

TOKYO, January 10, 2018 - Canon Inc. ranked third for the number of U.S. patents awarded in 2017, becoming the only company in the world to have ranked in the top five for 32 years running, according to the latest ranking of preliminary patent results issued by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services. What's more, Canon once again ranked first among Japanese companies.

Canon actively promotes the globalization of its business and places great value on obtaining patents overseas, carefully adhering to a patent-filing strategy that pursues patents in essential countries and regions while taking into consideration the business strategies and technology and product trends unique to each location. Among these, the United States, with its many high-tech companies and large market scale, represents a particularly important region in terms of business expansion and technology alliances.

Canon prizes its corporate DNA of placing a high priority on technology. And with regard to research and development results, the Company actively promotes the acquisition of patent rights in accordance with the management direction of the Canon Group and technology trends while conducting thorough pre-application searches to raise the quality of applications. Through close cooperation between Canon's technology and intellectual property divisions, the Company aims to improve its technological capabilities while further enhancing its intellectual property rights.

Year      World    Japan    # of patents

2017 3rd      1st            3,285
2016 3rd      1st            3,665
2015 3rd      1st            4,127
2014 3rd      1st            4,048
2013 3rd      1st            3,820
2012 3rd      1st            3,173
2011 3rd      1st            2,818
2010 4th      1st            2,551
2009 4th      1st            2,200
2008 3rd      1st            2,107
2007 3rd      1st            1,983
2006 3rd      1st            2,366
2005 2nd      1st           1,829

New Canon Patent : Variable Curved Image Sensor

Canon has patented a new curved image sensor design. What makes this design interesting and perhaps revolutionary is, the curvature of the sensor varies with the focal length.

Of course, this is a very early stage design concept and curved sensor is not new. Will have to wait and see if Canon can make any meaningful improvement in image quality out of this new patent.

New Canon Patent - Variable Optical Low Pass Filter

Egami has discovered a new Canon patented for a variable optical low-pass filter (OLPF). It utilizes the autoexposure sensor to change the low-pass effect up or down.

I am on a Polar bear photo tour in Hudson Bay with the EOS-5Ds and EOS-1D X Mark II cameras now. You can follow my travel on Facebook and Twitter and see my works on MichaelDanielHo.com

Patent Publication No. 2016-173437 (Google Translated)

• Published 2016.9.29
• Filing date 2015.3.17
• Performing object recognition using an image sensor AE sensor
• Using a variable OLPF for false color reduction
• Image quality decreases when focus deviation occurs is generated by the temperature, is detected object recognition is erroneous
• It suppresses the effect of the variable OLPF according to the temperature, suppressing the influence of the deterioration in image quality

New Canon Patent Discovered For a Curved Sensor

Egami, the Japanese photography blog has uncovered a new Canon patent for a curved image sensor. According to translated patent literature :

"an optical system which makes an object image image on an imaging surface of the image sensor. A driving means which incurvates an imaging surface of the aforementioned image sensor, a control means which controls the aforementioned driving means and incurvates the aforementioned image sensor so that it may become the curvature according to curvature-of-field aberration and a photographing condition of the aforementioned optical system."

Patent Publication No. 2016-173496

• Published 2016.9.29
• Filing date 2015.3.17
• However, generally a dark current is generated by the image sensor, especially since the time of or during long exposure sensitivity is sometimes noise due to dark current are noticeable, various noise reduction process is performed. On the other hand, the imaging surface imaging element is curved in the imaging element curved dark current generated by the imaging device is known to be reduced by the tensile stress.

Canon patent

• Curving the imaging surface drive means
• Driving means magnetic force

Curvature

• Curvature of dark current noise is reduced
• Curvature priority to the correction of the curvature of field aberration