The management and protection of data-based intellectual property have attracted increasing attention in the academic community due to the rapid development of digital technologies and data-driven industries. However, a comprehensive and multidimensional examination of the research landscape is still required to better understand its structure and evolution. Using CiteSpace software, this study conducts a bibliometric analysis, revealing key trends and patterns in collaboration, co-citation, and keyword co-occurrence in the field of data-based intellectual property. Our findings show a growing body of literature on data IP management, with a significant increase in publications since 2013. We identify that collaboration between regions, especially the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, leads global efforts, but institutional collaboration remains underdeveloped. In terms of co-citation, seminal works by Jaffe, Hall, and Samuelson form the foundation of the current research, while emerging research focuses on technological innovations like blockchain and AI. The analysis further reveals that future research is likely to explore the intersections of data privacy, innovation, and legal frameworks. Compared with previous studies, this paper builds a knowledge framework for data-based intellectual property management from a holistic perspective of bibliometrics, analyses the current challenges, and outlines future research directions, which is of significant reference value to both scholars and practitioners.

In this article, the 2002 and 2024 revised editions of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Popularization of Science and Technology (“the Law”) are examined to explore how the state shapes the science–society relationship. Relevant explanatory reports on the revision of the Law, policies, and central/local materials about the implementation of the first “National Science Popularization Month” are reviewed. Based on four dimensions (political–normative, organizational–responsibility, capacity–instrument, and oversight–accountability), the new Law is proposed to promote science popularization from “an educational and cultural activity to cultivate individual scientific quality” to “a basic governance project that serves a powerful country in science and technology, Chinese-style modernization, and high-level self-reliance in science and technology.” Three cases of popularization efforts, urban, rural and mobile, reveal that the Law increases the visibility and organizational density of science popularization. However, the materials also reveal that public participation is defined mainly as visiting, experiencing, volunteering, and cooperating with governance, rather than issue identification, decision-making, or cogovernance. Therefore, two concepts, “legalized science popularization” and a “state-mobilized literacy model,” are proposed, and it is asserted that instead of going beyond a simple deficit model or becoming a participation model, the Chinese case presents a hybrid form of science popularization characterized by law centering, multiorganizational coordination and state mobilization support.