Olympus filed a patent 201237640 in Japan for a new 17mm f/2.8 lens. The current Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 17mm f/2.8 pancake lens ($299.99) was announced on June 16, 2009. The newly patented lens will have 7 elements in 5 groups compared to 6 elements in 4 groups in the current model.
Canon patents for a 400mm f/4, 200mm f/5.6, 300mm f/4 lenses. The next Canon patent is for a 18-45mm f/3.5-5.6 lens for a APS-C mirrorless camera:
Today Sony announced their next generation back-illuminated CMOS sensor with “RGBW Coding” that will enabling clear shooting in low light conditions: The new sensor features also a new HDR Movie function: Canon recently also filed a patent (2012-15275) for a large size back-illuminated CMOS sensor.
Canon filed a patent 2012-8344 in Japan for a 55-110mm f/2.0 zoom lens:
Last week Kodak filed a lawsuit against Fujifilm for patents infringement. This week it’s Samsung’s turn. Any guesses who is going to be sued next week? Here are both press releases – I have hyperlinked the related patents:
Olympus filed patent 2012-3077 in Japan for a 6-24mm f/2.7-6.1 (28-112mm equivalent) and a 6-30mm f/2.4-6.8 (28-140mm equivalent) lenses:
Similar to Fujifilm, Panasonic also filed a patent 2011-258729 in Japan for an organic sensor that can change the thickness of the organic film by changing the wavelength. Here is a machine generated translation of the patent description taken from the Japanese Patent Office:
Olympus filed a patent in Japan (2011-259166) for a vari-angle LCD screen that can be flipped to pretty much any camera side/angle: In addition to the US patent for an organic sensor, Fujifilm filed a similar patent in Japan (2011-253861). Here are some more details from the Japanese patent application (Google translation):
Canon filed patent 2011-253050 in Japan for the following prime lenses: 50mm f/1.4 lens 85mm f/1.2 lens 85mm f/1.8 lens
Olympus filed patent 2011-250022 in Japan for a hot shoe mounted miniature camera that will be used to capture stereo/3D images. It seems that Olympus has chosen a different 3D solution than Panasonic’s Micro Four Thirds 12.5mm f/12 3D lens.
Patent 2011242520 from Olympus describes several different wide angle lenses: 8mm f/3.5 fisheye, 12mm f/1.8, 12mm f/2.8, 10mm f/2.8 and 12mm f/2.0:
Fuji was granted a patent 8053661 for an organic sensor. Some readers speculated yesterday that this sensor may be used in the upcoming Fuji LX mirrorless interchangeable lens camera. From the patent’s summary: An object of the present invention is to provide an organic photoelectric conversion layer exhibiting high photoelectric conversion efficiency, low dark current and high-speed responsivity, […]
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