Canon has designed a space-saving, tilting electronic viewfinder. As far as we can tell, the patent is not to cover the whole principle of tilting EVFs (which has been done many times before) but the use of a design that reduces the extra size of these tilting displays.
Either way, could we be seeing this revisited viewfinder technology in the best Canon cameras going forward? This information comes from Canon Rumors, and references an article on the J-PlatPat website (via computerized translation), an online resource for patent information.
The fact that Canon has registered this patent does not indicate for certain that this EVF will appear in a camera but, as Canon Rumors points out, the level of detail suggests it's more than just an idea.
We're used to seeing tilting viewfinders on some of the best camcorders, but they are relatively rare on regular cameras – though the Panasonic Lumix GX9 and Fujifilm GFX100 are examples. What's significant here is that Canon's supporting diagrams clearly show its use on an EOS R-style mirrorless camera body.
