Patent ID: 8078197

Claim:
A communication device having a current location and adapted to: (a) allow a user of the communication device to provide a search query having one or more search parameters; (b) automatically acquire location information indicating at least one of (i) the current location of the communication device and (ii) a home location for the user of the communication device; (c) transmit the search query and the location information via a communication network to a search engine, wherein the search engine is adapted to: (1) search a collection of documents using the one or more search parameters to obtain two or more search results, wherein each of the two or more search results corresponds to a different document in the collection of documents; (2) rank the search results based on the location information; and (3) transmit at least some of the ranked search results to the communication device; and (d) display the received ranked search results, wherein: the location information indicates the current location of the communication device; the search engine is further adapted to determine a current zone of interest based on the current location of the communication device; the search results are also ranked based on the current zone of interest; the current zone of interest has at least one of a shape and size based on the current location; the communication device has a velocity indicating a speed and a direction of the communication device; the location information further indicates the velocity of the communication device; and at least one of the shape and size of the current zone of interest is based on the velocity of the communication device.