Patent filed for the rumored new Nikon 16-85mm DX lens

New patented lens design

Design of the current Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

I already mentioned that Nikon will release a new 16-85mm DX lens in 2012 with a fixed f/4 aperture. A new patent (201042547) filed in Japan just became available online and shows the details of a Nikkor 16-85mm f/4 DX VR lens. Here is one of the shown examples (patents usually have several different variations/calculations of the same lens):

Currently the Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR DX lens is back-ordered at both B&H and Adorama.