Originally Posted by Philippos 
Isn't this the Kodak patent?
I swear I saw something like this (too much like this) from Kodak, not that long ago!
If this is indeed a Pentax patent, I can imagine the rumours about it's legality starting very very soon.
That's an excellent question. The only difference between the Pentax patent (at least the embodiment I wrote about in the first post) and the upcoming Kodak sensors seems to be that the 4 photo detectors share a micro-lens. The diffusion filter also makes sure each photo detector sees the same light color and intensity, which prevents aliasing problems (i.e. moire patterns). The upcoming Kodak sensors, on the other hand, will have separate micro-lenses for each photo detector (i.e. pixel) and will still need an anti-aliasing filter on top of the sensor.
I wonder which of the Pentax and Kodak patents was submitted first. Does anybody know?