Virtual and augmented reality companies are much more worried about legal risks—especially relating to data privacy, safety and IP—than they were a year and a half ago, according to new survey results released by Perkins Coie.

In a report released Tuesday, the law firm said 44 percent of the individuals it polled responded that “consumer privacy/data security” was a legal risk of concern to their organization. That's a big jump up from just 15 percent the last time Perkins Coie conducted the poll in September 2016.

“Product liability/health and safety issues” were also cited as a concern by 42 percent of respondents, up from 18 percent in the last survey. And 40 percent of those polled responded that “intellectual property infringement” was a legal concern, up from just 16 percent the last time around.

Jason Schneiderman, a partner at the firm's Palo Alto, California, office and a contributing author to the report, interpreted the results as a sign of a “more mature marketplace” for VR, AR, and “mixed reality” (MR) technologies.

In the earlier stages of the industry, many companies were simply trying to get their technology off the ground, he said. “But once some of them start to get legs and actually develop something, then they get to sort of move downstream on their worry list,” Schneiderman said.

He also said many in the industry see it becoming less collaborative, and fear greater consolidation will lead to more battles for turf. He was skeptical that the $500 million verdict against Facebook in a lawsuit over the Oculus Rift had much to do with the uptick, noting that many elements of that dispute were very unique to Facebook.

Among the 140 respondents—most of whom were executives at VR, AR, MR or other tech companies—61 percent of the respondents said patent litigation was most likely to drive intellectual property related disputes in the industry. (The last survey didn't have this category.)

“Technology and IP licensing” was cited as a concern by 30 percent of respondents, up from 19 percent in the last survey. “Licensing is a slippery slope. The industry is in its early stages; there are bound to be screw-ups,” the report quoted one anonymous VR startup developer as saying.

The only category in which there was less concern over legal risk was “export control issues,” which fell to 6 percent compared with 8 percent in 2016.

Eyeing broader industry trends, most respondents still saw gaming as the sector likely to draw the most investment. “But gaming's lead position was not as strong in 2018, with retail, military and defense, and real estate among the areas making gains,” the report said.

Respondents identified “user experience”—bulky hardware, technological limitations or glitches—as the biggest obstacle to mass adoption of VR and AR technology, a finding consistent with last year's report.