Canon's total R&D spend has been falling between 2009-2011, as a percentage of gross sales, plus Canon's R&D spend for their Consumer Division has also been declining compared to the other 2 divisions (I've used samples of Canon Inc's P&L statements in numerous CR posts before, earlier this year to prove this).
Canon is deliberately spending less and less on R&D on consumer products (includes cameras & DSLR's). Why? Because as their Chairman in Japan states in simple English they see better growth prospects in their Industrial Division, plus there is natural growth geographically (Asia was singled out) for consumer products, especially Digital SLR's.
When you have a major corporation whose marketing department is telling them, we need to spend more on Advertising than on R&D because we need to sell more T3i's or T4i's to South Koreans, than we need to develop a better sensor for Americans & Brits so that they can trade-up. Read their official profit & loss statements and look at their balance sheet -> Canon is a publicly quoted/traded company on the stock market, this info is out there, but few bother to read it.
