Pedagogy and Patents: Mapping Teaching Innovation Trends in Information Studies

This study examined the evolution of teaching innovation in Information Studies through a systematic patent analytics approach. Using 3,379 granted patent records published between 1980 and 2024, the research mapped technological and pedagogical trends by analyzing annual growth patterns, jurisdictional distribution, ownership structures, inventor activity, citation impact, patent families, and Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) codes. The findings revealed a clear transition from foundational information processing technologies in the 1980s to multimedia and network-based learning systems in the 1990s, followed by the consolidation of digital libraries and instructional platforms in the 2000s. From the 2010s onward, pedagogical innovation increasingly reflected data-driven, platform oriented, and analytics-supported teaching systems, while the 2020s demonstrated the growing dominance of artificial intelligence enabled pedagogical technologies, including intelligent information retrieval and natural language processing. Jurisdictional and ownership analyses showed strong geographical concentration, with technologically advanced economies and multinational corporations leading innovation activity. Citation and patent family analyses indicated substantial technological diffusion and academic relevance, highlighting the cumulative nature of pedagogical innovation. Overall, the study demonstrated that patents serve as valuable indicators for tracing the evolution of teaching innovation and provided empirical insights into how pedagogical practices in Information Studies have been shaped by technological advancement and intellectual property dynamics.