BERKELEY — An industry group is asking the United States Supreme Court to strike down Berkeley’s cellphone disclosure ordinance as unconstitutional.

The ordinance, approved by the City Council in May 2015, mandates a warning notice to people buying and leasing cellphones that carrying the devices close to the body when switched on could expose them to radiation in excess of federal guidelines.

CTIA -The Wireless Association, a national industry group, challenged the ordinance in federal court, saying the warning is “ill-informed and misleading” and that forcing retailers to proclaim it violates their First Amendment rights. But a judge gave the ordinance the OK.

CTI appealed but lost, when a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found the disclosure information to be “reasonably related to a substantial government interest and …. purely factual.” In October 2017, the appeals court declined a request by CTIA to have its appeal reheard by a larger panel of judges.

On Jan. 9, CTIA petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

“We think it is important that the Supreme Court make clear that the First Amendment prohibits state and local governments from forcing retailers to convey the government’s message, particularly where the government’s message is misleading, contrary to science, and contrary to the retailers’ own views,” CTIA said in a statement Wednesday.

The city, in a statement attributed to its representative in the case, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, said Wednesday:

“We do not believe there are any substantial questions decided by the 9th Circuit that conflict with the law elsewhere in the nation. We therefore do not believe this case merits Supreme Court review.”