http://www.google.com/patents/US7343165
It covers a system for sharing information about users (e.g. location, how to contact them) who have GPS-equipped phones that transmit location and some other information back to a central server. There's also some tomfoolery in there about how the server needs to store data for different users at different memory locations, but that's not particularly relevant or interesting, and frankly looks like obscurantist padding meant to make the patent seem more specific and novel than it really is.
It does seem to cover what Foursquare does. Of course, it does this by being obvious, and not in any way advancing the state of the art. I can't think of any good argument for why the patent system should cover things like this, and yet here it is.
EDIT: The other patent is similarly obvious. It's short, so check out the claims:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=FKuoAAAAEBAJ&printsec=a...
"Ownership" is a big stretch but not as big of a stretch as this being a patentable idea.
What is covered by the patent is other aspects of location tracking, specifically at issue here, the use of a central database to store detected locations and to make use of detected locations for other purposes. In this context, the patent claims any form of geo-location technology which is used to contribute to that database.
Claims 1. A method, using a personal computer device having a GPS receiver, of populating a database comprising:
determining, by the personal computer device using its GPS receiver, a location at which the personal computer device becomes relatively immobile;
(rest of claim 1 ommited)
Which is why the patent at issue does not claim ownership of GPS. It claims ownership of a different method of location detection, somewhat similar to the non-GPS system that Google and Apple use.
This article has been flagged for being incorrect and linkbaity. Who would have thought that the quality of GigaOm would actually fall below that of PandoDaily?