Here is the original Atkinson cycle conceived to get around Otto's patents.
Animated Engines - Atkinson
Modern engines achieve a similar effect with cam timing and offset crankshaft journals.
Direct Injection was used on the DB 601 engine in the ME 109 of WW2 fame.
The original Flathead Ford engine of 1932 had an offset crankshaft.
CVTs mostly go back to the Van Dorne belt patent of the mid 1950s.
Nothing new here and Honda has been in decline since old man Honda died in 1991. Back then they really tried some cutting edge engineering, now they are more like GM in decline, riding their laurels since about 2000 when the first Insight came out.
My 94 VX was a great car. the 2002 Insight was neat but had a lot of warranty issues $7k in work in 1 year. Honda kept timing belts too long as well as interference engines.
Probably get slammed for this post, but that is just the way I feel about new Hondas. My 84 CRX was fantastic. The 77 Accord the old man drove up and down US 1 in the Florida Keys averaged right at 40 MPG.
The best of them all was the VX, a truly marvelous piece of engineering. After that peak they have not really done anything that I would come close to calling really innovative, and bragging about ancient technology just convinces me the whole thing is a propaganda campaign.
The new Prius 3 I think, lightweight with the old 1.5 engine and low 50s combined MPG at just under 20k is going to send the 2nd gen Insight to the scrap heap.
regards
Mech