San Francisco, a city that's a hub for major tech companies, has recently passed legislation creating the Office of Emerging Technology to regulate tests of tech ideas on the city's streets.
But tech groups are concerned that government regulations would make innovation more difficult, especially for newer small startups that are less well funded.
"Now you have added a layer of bureaucracy that companies will have to work through in order to test and ultimately deploy their technology," said Peter Leroe-Muñoz, general counsel and vice-president of tech and innovation policy at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which represents many tech companies.
"More established companies have the legal departments and the resources to address some of those bureaucratic hurdles. But smaller companies are less well positioned to do that. So it raises the barrier to entry for younger, smaller startups," explained Leroe-Muñoz.
He also noted another challenge for intellectual property, using the example of San Francisco's Office of Emerging Technology.
"There'll be a public hearing for the Office of Emerging Technology to hear and learn about the technology before they make a decision. What you're now risking is exposing valuable intellectual property in these public hearings," he said.
"There's a very real chance that companies will be forced to discuss intellectual property that they own. Whether it is with regard to the schematics of their technologies that they're working on, or it's business strategy, all these are tightly held secrets," said Leroe-Muñoz.
Source: China Daily
