IANAL - but (in most countries) you can’t patent a concept or an idea - only specific implementations of an idea (I.e. a physical invention) - software patents and business-process patents notwithstanding.
But that doesn’t stop companies (especially those with a weak technical moat) from abusing the system.
"You can’t patent a concept or an idea" also doesn't prevent patent offices from granting patents on concepts and ideas.
IMO, if we are to have patents at all, the patent offices should be robust, well-funded systems which make sure that no patent that's not genuinely a novel implementation of an idea gets granted. In reality, it seems like patent offices more or less accept anything that's written in dense enough lawyerese, and it's up to the legal system to slowly invalidate the bad patents after they've done a ton of harm.
The fault here doesn't lie with the companies, but with the whole patent system where governments are way too quick to give out a state-backed monopoly of an idea. I find the whole practice despicable.
> 1. A computer implemented method of producing a location identifier comprising:
> receiving at a processor geographical coordinates of a location;
> at said processor performing the steps of:
> converting the geographical coordinates into a single unique value n;
> converting the single unique value n into a unique group of a plurality of
> values; and converting the plurality of values into an equal plurality of
> respective words; and making the plurality of words available as a location
> identifier.
It's hard to imagine anything remotely based around the idea to "convert a location to a set of words" which doesn't infringe on that claim.
But that doesn’t stop companies (especially those with a weak technical moat) from abusing the system.