The Supreme Court today denied the Conan Doyle Estate's petition for a writ of certiorari without comment. That leaves the 7th Circuit's decision standing and leaves the Sherlock Holmes characters in the public domain.
Circuit Judge Posner described the Doyle Estate's attempt to completely protect the Sherlock Holmes characters based on the fact that some of the stories and one novel remain under copyright as "quixotic" in light of the fact that most of Conan Doyle's stories are in the public domain.
See my posts on October 8 and 16, 2014 for more details.