Business Wire, founded in 1961, has been a major force in press release distribution for the past 50 years. Now their power may have grown substantially. According to their own press release, the recently awarded patent included "the technological process of optimizing and distributing press releases to maximize their ability to be found and tracked in leading search engines" (emphasis added).

Pay attention to that word "process." This wasn't Business Wire patenting a bit of software or a new visible technology. This is the patenting of an SEO strategy.

Additional verbiage confirms that this isn't just the patenting of Business Wire's systems; the patent claim itself (as cited by Elevate Local) gives Business Wire rights to "a computer-implemented method comprising" (emphasis added) a variety of standard SEO tactics, most of them centering around the analysis and optimization of document structure and keyword use.