Does forcing manufacturers to adopt the same charging cable stifle innovation?

According to a recent news article on by the BBC, European MPs have recently voted overwhelmingly for a new law that means that all new portable devices, such as laptops and mobile phones, sold in the EU will have to use the same type of charging cable (USB-C, in this case). The law is aimed at improving sustainability of portable devices and reducing waste, while at the same time making life easier for the average consumer.

As I write this, I can see out of the corner of my eye my overflowing “cable drawer”, which is full of a myriad of charging cables, some dating back to the early 2000s. The device to which any particular cable belongs may well now be long gone, but its cable remains. Every now and then I think about clearing the drawer out, but the risk is too high that I may dispose of a cable only to find out a month later that it was the only charging cable I had for one of my current, but lesser used, devices. Therefore, the arguments for making life easier for consumers is certainly a strong one. Perhaps more important, however, is the effect the new law will have on reducing waste. Being able to use a single charging cable for multiple devices will, I presume, mean that fewer charging cables need to be manufactured and fewer charging cables will be discarded.

While there are clearly positives to the new law, there is a concern that such a law may stifle innovation. The highlighted BBC article quotes an Apple representative as saying “strict regulation mandating just one type of connector stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, which in turn will harm consumers in Europe and around the world”. One of the most obvious differences I can see from the various cables in my cable drawer is just how much smaller and simpler the various connectors have become over the years. Smaller connectors means less space is taken up in the device to accommodate the connector, leading to smaller/lighter devices. This reduction in size (along with increased capabilities of such cables) is clearly a result of innovation. Mandating a single charging cable will clearly hinder such innovation in the future. Being a patent attorney, I do not like to see innovation being stifled.

The environmental impact on electronic waste cannot be ignored. However, I do wonder if an alternative solution may have been to instead introduce a law that aims to make new cables easier to recycle, whilst still allowing some aspect of innovation. That is, such a law may have required charging cables to be made of certain materials, or made to fit within a particular design specification that lends itself to easier dismantling/recycling. This would allow manufactures to continue to innovate within the design specification to create new improved charger cables, while at the same time ensuring that such cables are designed in such a way as to make them easier to recycle. I do concede, however, that such a law would likely not remedy my overflowing cable drawer…