Canon Patent Application: 18-45mm APS-C but NOT for RF mount

A patent application appeared off schedule for Canon, showing an APS-C lens.  I didn't initially report on this because well, the lens is really nothing.  But since a few other sites picked it up and ran with it, I guess I had to then. Some sites have claimed this is an RF lens. It's extremely unlikely.

As far as this application; The lens is trash with a stretched image circle at even 18mm. It's also very large with a lens length of around 72mm.  The back focus distance is around 30mm to 50mm from wide to telephoto.

Canon doesn't need to do any patent applications for RF APS-C.  All of the EF-M lenses are easily movable to the RF mount.  In a kit lens case, Canon already has a working 15-45 and an 18-55mm.  There's no way Canon is going to use a back focus distance of 30mm on a mirrorless RF APS-C Lens.  The lens length of 72mm is also too large for a mirrorless APS-C lens of 45mm on the telephoto end.  Even the 18-55mm EOS-M would be 59mm and it's longer, and faster than these embodiments.

If we're going to find patent applications for RF APS-C it will be something like a 15-45mm F2.8, or a 17-55mm F2.8, or perhaps a 15-200mm super zoom.  It's not going to be an 18-45mm kit lens, which is a poor range by today's standards.

What would this lens be for? Quite possibly it's simply a patent application of an older design, from EF-S days.  Canon does patent things they probably never will ever use. However, it's really the optical formulae they are applying for a patent on. In this case, the embodiments simply aren't mirrorless.

I get that we all want to find the smoking gun that shows that Canon is making RF APS-C lenses, but in reality, they already have all they need. We'll have to wait a little while longer to find a lens that uniquely appears to be an RF APS-C lens - assuming Canon is even going to make a special one specifically for the RF system.  

Canon 18-45mm F4.5 - 6.5

focal length         18.53  30.00  43.65  
F number              4.54   5.43   6.50  
Half angle (°)       33.78  24.48  17.38  
Image height         12.40  13.66  13.66  
Total length of lens 92.00  81.80  83.05  
BF                   30.20  39.83  51.20  

Canon 18-45mm F4.5 - 6.5

focal length         18.53  30.00  43.65  
F-number              4.56   5.48   6.50  
half angle (°)       33.78  24.48  17.38  
Image height         12.40  13.66  13.66  
total lens length    89.11  81.23  81.40  
BF                   28.48  38.21  47.77  

Japan Patent Application JP2021-162822