There is so much focus on Google and Apple in the mobile phone market that it may come as a surprise to hear that Yahoo is the tech firm knocking on the door of the patent office.
The company has this week filed a new application at the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia.
The technology, developed by Sorren Riise and Devesh Patel in the UK, works firstly by understanding via the handset which direction a user is travelling.
Normally when a user types in a query into a search engine the advertising placed alongside the search results is dependent on what the user has search for and/or geographic loction.
However, the recently created technology serves advertising based on the direction the user is heading and making a judgement on where they are likely to be going.
For example:
User leaves London on the Eurostar to Paris. Rather than serve UK-based advertising during the first part of the journey, the technology will detect what the user is doing and where they are going in order to serve Paris-based ads.
The full patent abstract:
"A system is described for providing location predictive advertising. The system may include a processor, a memory, and an interface. The memory may store an advertisement. The interface may communicate with an electronic device.
"The processor may determine a first geographic location of an electronic device which is travelling in a direction. The processor may identify a first geographic region which may encompass the first geographic location of the electronic device. The processor may determine a second geographic region which is located in the direction of travel of the electronic device.
"The processor may determine an advertisement associated with the second geographic region in accordance with the electronic device being located within the first geographic region. The processor may provide the advertisement to the electronic device."