And, cross apply follow on – the counterplan results in the feds eventually doing the action but the sequencing is key

Viewed from a dynamic perspective, the advantage of giving local governments patent legislative power lies in their ability to experiment with new rules through legislation.215 Such experimentation can lead to innovation within the patent system. In fact, according to John Duffy, the history of patent law [*293] underscores the importance of experiments in law.216 Local legislative power can facilitate the simultaneous experimentation of different statutory laws across regions, enhancing its efficiency of and, in turn, boosting innovation in law.217 Indeed, the ability to experiment with decentralized law is a characteristic and an advantage of federalism.218 As the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis pointed out, "It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."219 By contrast, centralized patent legislation requires that statutory experiments occur sequentially rather than geographically, leading to slower legal innovation.220 And when these experiments are not conducted simultaneously, interpreting the data from any innovation is challenging, as the lack of variation means that there is no proper control.221

The semi-decentralized model promotes innovation by enabling the testing of different approaches, generating a wealth of information about institutional reform.222 Local governments can conduct experiments with the new statutory rules that they create, and the knowledge that such experiments generate can in turn inform the legislation of other local governments as well as the central one. The value of this strategy became clear during China's period of reform and opening up and continues to this day.223 As Deng Xiaoping, the second-generation leader in China, stated: "There are regulations that localities can engage in first, on a trial basis, and then after summing up and improving, [we will be able to] make [*294] laws that are applicable nationwide."224 Xuan-Thao Nguyen echoed this view, highlighting the instrumental role of localities as laboratories of change, whose successful experiments in patent-law reform can profoundly influence both local and national legislation.225