Google has a lot of self-driving cars that have driven a lot of miles, but so far has not used them commercially. That could change if the Silicon Valley giant pursues its rumored plans of developing an autonomous ride-sharing network to compete with Uber and Lyft. Recently, Google filed a patent application that could be seen as the first shot across Uber’s bow.

The application, first noticed earlier this month by the website Patent Yogi, is for efficiently determining pick-up and destination locations for autonomous vehicles. Google says it wants to operate fully self-driving cars where passengers provide some initial input, such as a pick-up or destination location, and the vehicle maneuvers itself to that location.

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