Discourses on Patent Law Reforms in Sri Lanka

This chapter examines the discourse around the settings for the Sri Lankan patent administration system against its constructs between actors, processes and discourses as the first case study. As identified in the documents and interviews, in this case study, the discourses about patentability, the standard of examination for patent applications and the procedures for review of decisions are areas of conflict between high-technology and low-technology patent requirements. These are certainly global discourses currently relevant, but it could also be that local discourses matter for it is about implementing appropriate systems to encourage development. The global discourses appear to be the strongest, but the data presented in this case study will reveal that resistance to this and other influences have led this to be a predominantly a local discourse.