As Bill Slawski accurately notes in a thread he created at Cre8asite Forums named Google's 3 Wireless Advertising Patent Applications, branding, advertising, and subsidizing, discussion on wireless advertising patents have been the craze recently. News.com reports on it, first the pushed out a title that said Google has won the rights to the patent, but that was quickly corrected. But I much more prefer to read the Cre8asite Forum thread.
Bill summarizes the three patent applications.
(1) Method and system to provide wireless access at a reduced rate:
Methods and system for providing wireless access at a reduced rate. In one embodiment, access to a WAP is provided to an end-user at a rate subsidized by a first entity. The first entity includes advertisements in an end-user view.Bill explains that this one has more to do with wireless access, which reminds me of a Gary post named Google Awarded Patent To Make Data Move Faster to Wireless Phones and Devices.
(2) Method and system to provide advertisements based on wireless access points:
Methods and system to provide advertisements in a view of an end user accessing a wireless access point. The advertisements are related to the WAP based on a predetermined criterion.Basically discusses the "integration" of the wireless ads into wireless enabled devices, I believe there are some geo specific ads as well discussed here.
(3) Method and system for dynamically modifying the appearance of browser screens on a client device:
In one embodiment, a connection of a client device to a wireless access point is identified. Further, the appearance of a screen presented on the client device is modified to reflect the brand associated with a provider of the wireless access point.This is basically about branding the ads with the WAP partner's logo and content.
So in short you have three patent applications from Google. One about optimizing the ads across wireless protocols. The second is about the integration of the ads and the third is about branding those ads.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.