Patent ID: 7813873

Claim:
A method for identifying a location of a point of interest, the point of interest having an address, the address including at least a street component and a city component, the method comprising: receiving, by a computer, an input address, the input address including an input street component and an input city component; identifying an unbloated city key list, the unbloated city key list including a first set of geospatial keys, each key having a footprint, and each key including data associated with the input city; determining a buffer distance; determining a first geographic region defined by a union of the footprints of the keys in the unbloated city key list; determining a second geographic region, the second geographic region defined by expanding the first geographic region to include all points within the determined buffer distance of the first geographic region; identifying a bloated city key list, the bloated city key list including a second set of geospatial keys, each key having a footprint contained in or overlapping the second geographic region; determining a street key list, the street key list including a set of geospatial keys including data associated with the input street; determining an intersecting set of keys, each key in the intersecting set being a member of the bloated city key list and the street key list; retrieving map data for each key in the intersecting set of keys; determining a candidate set of points of interest, each point of interest in the candidate set having an address included in the footprint of at least one key in the intersecting set of keys; and displaying indicia of at least one of the points of interest of the candidate set of points of interest.