Remember all the fun that Apple and Nokia are going through in the US IP courts? Well there could be a little bit of history about to repeat itself with yesterday’s filing by Google. The Mountain View based company have been awarded a patent that covers “using location in an advertising system” by the USPTO. Given the primacy location has in various Ovi modules, this could the next touch-paper for the lawyers in Espoo.

The summary of the filing is as follows:

A method for capturing a broadcast is disclosed. The method for capturing a broadcast includes detecting an approximate start time of the broadcast, wherein said detecting includes monitoring for a broadcast trigger, identifying the broadcast and a timed length thereof, such that, based on the timed length and the approximate start time, an approximate end time may be calculated, and recording the broadcast from the trigger to the approximate end time, wherein said recording has captured the broadcast of radio advertising.

….and you can read the full filing online.

While it’s couched in terms that initially apply to broadcast radio, which fits in with Google’s work with broadcasters, it could easily be argued that it would cover the location of a mobile phone that picks up a broadcast (a phone signal) that needs some contextual advertising added (the traditional AdSense injection on a web page).

Even if it’s not perfect, the chilling effect that Google could apply to US start-ups and companies operating in the country could slow down the growth of other ad networks, which would be to Google’s benefit, or at least have people working out another way of doing it.

This is something to keep in mind as advertising and LBS comes to the fore in 2010.