Any company can file its patent in as many countries as it wishes, if you want to know the previous or original filing, you have to check the "Priority" section of the front of the patent. In this case you can see the number it got assigned when it was filed previously in Israel in 2004.
Why would Rafael fil this patent so fast? Well, its a pattern from them as I got a series of patents that got filed pretty much at the same time said armor technology started to be fielded in a tank for service. Same case with the patent disclosing NxRA/SLERA that we knew for years. Now, why would they do that? Because they start offering that technology to the market as soon as they can: another of the aspects that I will explain in a future part is that Merkava 4 armor technology made its way to American Bradleys in the form of BRAT (and thats all I´ll say for the moment about this).
Indeed there is no direct and explicit detailing on the composition of the Orlite armor plates that we see inside Merkava 4 modules. However all the materials stated as necessary in the patent are part of that list. Could be coincidence but it would be a pretty big one.
Depends on how you define a stretch. If someone claimed that Merkava 4 was required to have protection against rounds that wouldn´t even exist for the next 10 years, then I would say thats certainly a stretch. KEW-A1 started being offered 4 years before the first Merkava 4 was manufactured. IDF had all the reasons an army can have to require such protection level. That the patent's described threats align so precisely with KEW-A1´s characteristics is a particularly compelling indicator.
Ultimately what we really need is a better look into the interior of the modules and see what is what but we are decades away from this at least.