Court won't get into fight over grape patents

(AP) The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from a California table grape organization over a lawsuit seeking to invalidate several government table grape patents.

The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from the California Table Grape Commission, which is fighting to keep in place patents on Sweet Scarlet, Autumn King and Scarlet Royal varieties of table grapes.

Delano Farms Co. and other farms say the patents are invalid, and won a lower court decision that would allow them to go to court to fight their case. The commission wants that case thrown out, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit disagreed.

The case now goes back to the lower courts.