ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,280,715, issued on April 22, was assigned to International Business Machines Corp. (Armonk, N.Y.).

"Intelligent vehicle horn" was invented by Su Liu (Austin, Texas), Hamid Majdabadi (Ottawa), Shunguo Yan (Austin, Texas) and Michael Davis (Chesterfield, Mo.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A computer-implemented method to send targeted messages based on a driver's intent. The method includes identifying, by a sending vehicle, one or more additional vehicles in the vicinity of the sending vehicle, including a first vehicle. Monitoring a set of data related to a current scenario for the sending vehicle and determining, based on a current scena...