I’m kind of surprised to see this patented, since this doesn’t actually sound like a new idea. A long time back the BD camp talked about hybrid BD/DVD discs with both on the same side – the BD layers ‘over’ the DVD layers. Since HD-DVD has the same physical structure as DVD, it isn’t a big jump to putting BD over HD-DVD. There would probably need to be a material difference since different wavelengths of light are involved and you need the materials to work optically.
Personally I think the studios would just be prolonging the pain. If Warner stopped supporting HD-DVD it could help starve out HD-DVD. Don’t release titles and the players won’t sell, then they can release on only BD which will cost less than hybrid discs like this, or two different discs. (Three with DVD.)
