It’s patenting compressing the raw photo site values before debayering, which saves space and in theory allows for better, non-realtime debayering algorithms (more relevant when the patent was filed).
if its not an actual algorithm, but merely the thought of compressing the raw data (im not saying it is/isnt, I dont know), then its obviously totally ridiculous, and frankly, anyone that would even presume to think one should apply for such a patent should just be taken out back and disposed of. And then of course the patent office aswell
Which looks like it's patenting debayering. However I'm not a patent lawyer so I don't know.
I suspect that Nikon were using something like jpeg2000 to store raw frames, and thats why RED were getting all pissy.