Vernon Hugh Bowman seems comfortable with the old way of doing things, right down to the rotary-dial telephone he said he was using in a conference call with reporters.

But the 75-year-old Indiana farmer figured out a way to benefit from a high-technology product, soybeans that are resistant to weed-killers, without always paying the high price that such genetically engineered seeds typically bring. In so doing, he ignited a legal fight with seed-giant Monsanto Co. that has now come before the Supreme Court, with argument taking place Tuesday.

The court case poses the question of whether Bowman's actions violated the patent rights held by Monsanto, which developed soybean and other seeds that survive when farmers spray their fields with the company's Roundup brand weed-killer. The seeds dominate American agriculture, including in Indiana where more than 90 percent of soybeans are Roundup Ready.

Monsanto has attracted a bushel of researchers, universities and other agribusiness concerns to its side because they fear a decision in favor of Bowman would leave their own technological innovations open to poaching. The company's allies even include a company that is embroiled in a separate legal battle with Monsanto over one of the patents at issue in the Bowman case.

The Obama administration also backs Monsanto, having earlier urged the court to stay out of the case because of the potential for far-reaching implications for patents involving DNA molecules, nanotechnologies and other self-replicating technologies.

Monsanto's opponents argue that the company has tried to use patent law to control the supply of seeds for soybeans, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets and alfalfa. The result has been a dramatic rise in seed prices and reduced options for farmers, according to the Center for Food Safety. The group opposes the spread of genetically engineered crops and says their benefits have been grossly overstated.

An appeals court has turned down a reporter's effort to see an independent consultant's reports for American International Group, Inc.

A district court had granted the request from Sue Reisinger, a reporter for Corporate Counsel and American Lawyer magazines. The district court concluded the reports were judicial records, to which Reisinger had a common law right of access.

But a three-judge appeals court panel reversed the ruling Friday.

AIG hired the consultant as part of a court-approved consent decree with the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle 2004 allegations of securities violations by the giant insurer.

The appellate judges, all appointed by Republican presidents, concluded the reports were not judicial records subject to release because the lower court in handling the settlement made no decisions about or based on them.

A French court has sided with a Jewish group seeking to identify authors of anti-Semitic messages that circulated the social network Twitter last autumn.

The Paris court ordered Twitter to turn over to the French Union of Jewish Students whatever data it has that could help identify the account holders who posted the tweets. The court also ordered Twitter to make it easier for users of its French website to report "illicit content" such as apology for crimes against humanity and incitation to racial hatred.

Twitter is free to comply or not with the court order as the U.S. company has no personnel or offices in France.

Last October, the company bowed to complaints and agreed to pull the anti-Semitic tweets, which included slurs and photos evoking the Holocaust.

An Indiana financier and former chief executive of National Lampoon who was convicted of swindling investors out of about $200 million says he can't afford to hire an attorney to handle his appeal.

In federal court documents filed Monday, Timothy Durham said his multimillion-dollar Indianapolis home is in foreclosure and all of his financial assets are tied up bankruptcy proceedings of the companies he used to control.

Durham's home in Fortville, Ind., about 20 miles northeast of Indianapolis, has a $5 million mortgage but a free-market value of only $3 million, according to the documents.

Durham says his only income this year was $6,000 he received as a director of Dallas-based insurer CLST Holdings Inc. He also has stock in CLST and National Lampoon, the documents say.

Durham was sentenced to 50 years in prison last month on securities fraud and other convictions in the collapse of Akron, Ohio-based Fair Finance. He also was ordered to pay $202.8 million in restitution. Durham received credit for $6 million that already has been recovered.

Durham and two business partners were charged with stripping Fair Finance of its assets and using the money to buy mansions, classic cars and other luxury items and to keep another Durham company afloat. The men were convicted of operating an elaborate Ponzi scheme to hide the company's depleted condition from regulators and investors, many of whom were elderly.

Defense lawyers argued that Durham and the others were caught off-guard by the economic crisis of 2008, and bewildered when regulators placed them under more strict scrutiny and investors made a run on the company.

An appeals court on Wednesday denied the federal government's request to reconsider a decision blocking a requirement that tobacco companies put large graphic health warnings on cigarette packages to show that smoking can disfigure and even kill people.

In its filings, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., did not provide any reason denying the request for the full court or a panel to rehear the case.

In August, a three-judge panel affirmed a lower court ruling blocking the Food and Drug Administration mandate, saying it ran afoul of the First Amendment's free speech protections.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. The government has 90 days to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Some of the nation's largest tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., sued to block the mandate to include warnings to show the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit lighting up. They argued that the proposed warnings went beyond factual information into anti-smoking advocacy. The government argued the photos of dead and diseased smokers are factual.

A proposed settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought by retailers and trade groups against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. fails to protect merchants from abuse by credit card companies, a national retail group says.

The lawsuit, which dates to 2005, centers on the subject of swipe fees — charges banks collect every time a Visa or MasterCard is used to pay for a purchase.

The proposed settlement terms, initially disclosed in July, were revised and filed Friday with U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

But changes to the deal failed to win over many of the retailers represented by the National Retail Federation.

In a statement Mallory Duncan, the trade group's general counsel, said that the proposed deal does virtually nothing to protect retailers or their customers, and it attempts to silence any objections for years to come.

"Retailers would rather take their chances in court than accept this one-sided swindle written by the card industry for the card industry," he added.

The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, is not a party to the lawsuit.

In a statement Friday, Visa called the settlement a fair and reasonable compromise.

Under the proposed settlement, stores will be allowed to charge customers more if they pay with a credit card. The pact covers only U.S. transactions.

Markets rallied Tuesday amid growing confidence that a top German court will rule favorably on Europe's bailout fund.

That confidence more than offset any concerns generated by a warning from Moody's that it may cut its credit rating for the United States, the world's largest economy.

The Moody's warning that it may downgrade its triple A score for the U.S. by one notch if progress isn't made next year on reducing the country's debt-to-GDP ratio had been widely-anticipated. Last year, the U.S. lost its top rating from the Standard & Poor's ratings agency.

Investors are more focused on Wednesday's German court ruling on a request to block the country's approval of the eurozone's permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, or ESM. A last-minute appeal to delay the decision was dismissed Tuesday.