The dust is settling after the shock of last week’s sudden announcement that more foreign investments in American technology businesses would soon be subjected to national security reviews and mandatory reporting requirements as part of a federal pilot program.

But it appears that the initiative, which caught many by surprise, might not cast as wide a net as initially feared, according to Richard Matheny, a litigation partner at Goodwin Procter in Washington, D.C., who heads the firm’s global trade practice.