Google to Patent Mobile Click-to-call Ads (ClickZ)

Google appears to be setting its sights on the mobile advertising market, given its latest patent application. The company is seeking protection for a kind of ad that would trigger a phone call instead of rendering a new page when clicked.

This "call-on-select" functionality is described in U.S. patent application 20060004627, filed last week by Shumeet Baluja, a senior research scientist at Google. The application describes a process that takes into consideration a device's screen size, connection speed, and input capabilities to determine if it would be better to serve an ad with a link to a Web page or one that causes the phone or other mobile device to place a phone call to the advertiser.

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