India, Aug. 11 -- The Supreme Court declined to interfere with a Delhi High Court order in the long-running intellectual property dispute over PepsiCo India's registration of the FL 2027 (FC-5) potato variety used to make Lay's potato chips.

A bench of justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran held that PepsiCo's registration could not be revoked under Section 34(h) of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights (PPVFR) Act merely because the company had sued Gujarat farmers for infringement, while clarifying that individual farmers can still invoke protection under Section 39(1)(iv) of the Act if PepsiCo takes them to court.

Kavitha Kuruganti, a farmers' rights activist who had sought revocation of PepsiCo's registration and...