I have seen on Dpreview that fujifilm has been granted a patent for a new type of sensor with a strange non-Bayer pattern.
Thinking about it... Is there a camera using a simpler Bayer RGBW pattern? It would be interesting, because
1) you certainly loose some color resolution, but
2) the photodiode under the clear filter will receive more light (up to three time for a gray target),
So you could have a kind of mix between a normal camera and a Leica MM one, with less luminance noise in exchange to less color resolution...
Did any firm explored this path in the past? Or I am missing some big shortcoming?
PS: RGBW displays do exist and have advantages versus normal ones, so for reciprocity sensors could have some advantage too, our not?