What to Expect From the New Supreme Court Term Posted On January 12, 2021 The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to take on major cases in the copyright, patent, and employment law spaces, with questions about how the newly enlarged conservative wing will weigh in on these issues. Arguments have already been held in a case involving whether Google’s Android platform illegally infringed software code developed by Oracle. Later in the year, the court will consider whether changes made to patent law designed to combat patent trolls are constitutional or not. The Supreme Court only hears and decides a small number of cases each year, roughly one out of every 60 or 70 cases that are appealed to the court. Consequently, Supreme Court decisions carry extraordinary weight because they represent the final and unappealable outcome of a given legal issue. Court decisions in the intellectual property (IP) space are even less frequent, averaging about five or six a year, but they tend to be blockbusters.