The gen 2 client being released this month will also make GLD the first mineable cryptocurrency written in Java and the first to support multiple currencies.
It may be a
first, but writing the first Java client for a mineable cryptocurrency is not an innovation, it doesn't introduces any new technology, it just makes use of existing ones in a obvious way (but I can't discard that it introduces an actual innovation that I'm not aware of).
My understanding is the new GLD client introduces several new innovations including a rewritten codebase with multi-threaded design.