The patent, granted on Dec 25, 2012 is titled: System and method for identifying erroneous business listings. The idea is to highlight businesses that may intentionally locate themselves near or within the boundaries of oft-searched points of interest like the Eiffel Tower or Yellowstone National Park. The abstract:

A system and method is provided that detect a business listing having erroneous geospatial data. In one aspect, it is determined whether a first location and a second location are at least partially situated within a cell, the cell representing a geographic region having a predetermined area.

If the first location and the second location are at least partially situated within the cell, it is determined whether a geospatial coordinate of the first location is within a predetermined radius of the second location.

If it is determined that the geospatial coordinate of the first location is within a predetermined radius of the second location, the first location is flagged for inspection.

As Bill Slawski notes in his coverage of the patent at SEO by the Sea, it's interesting that Google is collecting patents (he gives a few examples) and using crowdsourcing to make its map data better just as Apple made that giant mapping boo boo with Apple Maps earlier this year.

- SEO by the Sea via +AJ Kohn