Canon Shoots for Increased Online Communication with Dot Canon TLD

Last week, Canon Inc. made an announcement that the company would seek to acquire the .canon top-level domain and use the new TLD "to increase the convenience and effectiveness of its online communications."

According to Wikipedia, the origin of the company name dates to 1934 when a prototype camera was dubbed "Kwanon" after the Buddhist Bodhisattva "Guan Yin," associated with compassion, mercy and love. Of course, the textual components of the CANON mark also represent the generic term, "canon," which is defined as the "body of ecclesiastical law" and "the body of rules, principles, or standards accepted as axiomatic and universally binding in a field of study or art." In fact, the adoption of the mark CANON sought to represent both of these concepts and thus "worthy of a company involved with precision equipment, where accuracy is fundamentally important."

Despite the recent economic downturn, Canon appears to be doing well, projecting to post an operating profit that may double the company's original projection for the quarter ending this month and acquiring recently the Dutch photocopy maker Oce. Today, Canon represents the world's largest digital camera maker and yet office imaging products and computer peripherals constitute more than 60% of Canon's sales.

So what might Canon be planning for the .canon TLD? In November 2008, MarkMonitor hosted a webinar, "Protecting Your Brand Online: From TLD to new gTLD," which may shed some light, in which three examples were suggested with regard to trademark owners might use a new top-level domain: restricted use by the trademark owner only, limited use by the trademark owner and partners, and expanded use by the trademark owner, partners and consumers.

Perhaps Canon seeks the .canon top-level domain simply to prevent the TLD's use in the generic sense as an identifier of ecclesiastical law or a body of accepted standards. Canon could register .canon and restrict its use only for simple corporate website addresses and for employee e-mail addresses, but, based on the press release alluding to "the convenience and effectiveness of its online communications," it appears Canon has bigger plans.

Canon could register .canon and make use of all these purposes and also allow the registration of .canon domain names by its authorized dealers, resellers and distributors of Canon's goods and services. Authorized dealers of Canon's consumer products, as well as resellers and distributors of its industrial and office products and services, could register domain names in the .canon TLD, which would give Canon greater control of the registration and use of .canon domain names and websites and also potentially provide consumers of Canon's goods and services with greater verification of the providers of said goods and services.

Going further, by registering the .canon TLD, Canon could, in addition to the purposes related to its partners, offer the possibility of registering .canon domain names to its consumers, particularly in relation to its digital camera business. Few practices involve the emotional attachment that many people feel in relation to the photographs they take with their cameras. Canon's registration of the .canon TLD could provide Canon's consumers with greater security and authentication for images held with a deep emotional attachment, as well as providing Canon with the ability to monitor the registration and use of .canon domain names.

All of this is conjecture, of course, but it is fun to think about. ICANN has often claimed that the introduction of new TLDs is intended to provide for greater innovation and choice in the Internet realm. As for innovation, few companies match Canon, at least as measured by having consistently finished within the top three in rankings of corporations receiving patents from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.