Consumer Technology Association president Gary Shapiro says there are three key things he thinks the tech sector would like to hear from the President in his last State of the Union speech Tuesday, including encouraging "disruptive innovation."
In a blog post, Shapiro suggested that currently the federal regulatory climate is chilly to that innovation, a climate that "piles one employer mandate atop another," including higher overtime pay that he says insures that startups won't be able to hire new talent.
In addition to asking the President to repeal those new Department of Labor pay thresholds, Shapiro called for passage of patent legislation targeting so-called "trolls" who he said were draining $1.5 billion a week from the economy in needless litigation or the settlements that are extracted to avoid that cost.
Shapiro also asked the President to keep pushing for passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a historic Pacific Rim trade agreement with 11 other countries that CTA as well as TV and film producers have been pushing as a way to expand trade and access to Asia-Pacific markets.
"Implementing new trade and patent reform policies while supporting new business models would help ferment President Obama’s pro-innovation legacy and would help the tech economy thrive," said Shapiro.
