Canon U.S.A., Inc., its parent company, Canon Inc. of Japan, and its subsidiary, Canon Canada Inc., announced that the companies have recently had success working with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) in preventing counterfeit Canon goods from entering into commerce and distribution in Canada and online.
In early January of 2020, CBSA contacted Canon through their Canadian legal representatives to alert the company that they had intercepted and detained 280 suspicious cartons bearing marks corresponding to various model numbers of Canon toner cartridges.
Working with Customs agents around the globe to stop importation of counterfeits which unlawfully use the Canon brand is part of Canon’s ongoing efforts to protect Canon consumers’ health and safety from counterfeit products, as well as to protect Canon’s reputation for quality and reliability. The goods that were detained by CBSA were imported into Canada by a company in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Responding to the CBSA’s Request for Assistance, image inspection of the suspicious goods by Canon experts led to the conclusion that the toner cartridges were counterfeit. According to the importer, the toner cartridges were originally offered for sale on Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce site. They had been shipped to Canada by certain Chinese exporters in packaging designed to mimic the appearance of genuine Canon toner cartridges,
Based on Canon’s years of anti-counterfeiting experience, the OEM said it was clear that the use of the Canon trademarks on the packaging was intended by the counterfeiters to deliberately mislead the public as to the true source of the products. The actions of the Chinese counterfeiters and those of the importer constituted unfair competition and misuse of the Canon trademarks, thereby damaging Canon’s business and reputation.
