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332 said State of Arkansas for the sale and manufacture of the Human Automatic Acetylene Gas Generator." A conveyance of an interest in the right to sell a patented article in a given territory is as much a sale of a "patent right" as a conveyance of the entire right to sell in the territory. No distinction can be made between the transactions in this regard. New v. Walker, 108 Ind. 370; Pinney v. First Nat. Bank (Kan.), 75 Pac. 119.

It is urged by appellants that this statute is in, conflict with § 8, art. 1, of the Constitution of the United States, giving to the Congress of the United States the power "to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the 'exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

In the case of Tilson v. Gatling, 60 Ark. 114, this court had under consideration the act of April 9, 1891 (Kirby's Digest, § 512), changing the rules of the law merchant concerning commercial and negotiable paper, so as to permit the payee or drawee of such paper executed in payment of a patent right, or patent right territory, to make all defenses against the assignee or holder of such paper that he could have made against the original payee or drawee, whether such paper be assigned before maturity or not; and that statute was held not to invade the power of Congress to create patent rights, etc. It is difficult to perceive any distinction between the validity of the two statutes in that regard; for if the Legislature had the rightful power to pass one of the statutes, it had also power to pass the other. If the jurisdiction of Congress over the subject of patents and patent rights is so extensive as to exclude the power of a State to declare void, unless made in certain form, written obligations given in consideration of sales of patent rights, or patented articles, then it also follows that the State is powerless to alter the established rules of the law merchant so as to permit defenses, not applicable to other negotiable paper, to be made to such paper given in consideration of sales of patent rights or patented articles. The argument of learned counsel for appellants that such legislation is an improper "discrimination against patented articles by imposing upon their sale conditions and restrictions not placed upon the sale of other similar articles" is as cogent against one of the statutes on the subject as against the other.