The Supreme Court finally held a hearing Tuesday on a years-long dispute between Apple and Samsung over smartphone patents. What it ultimately decides will have major impact on how tech companies think about design patents–Apple supporters say keeping the original law will protect individual design, and Samsung supporters say the law needs to change or it will stifle tech innovation.

At the core of this dispute, which could have dramatic implications for the future of Silicon Valley, is how the Supreme Court should interpret a law written in 1887 – a mere 11 years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone, and 60 years before Bell Labs built the first transistor.

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No matter what, experts expect the Court to offer some form of new guidance moving forward. “The fact that they took the case tells you that they maybe thought there was something wrong with the decision from the lower circuit decision,” says Mark Lemley, a professor of law at Stanford and the director for the Stanford Program in Law, Science and Technology. “Samsung starts with an edge because there was no conflict among the circuit, so the Supreme Court wouldn’t take the case just to say we agree with the lower circuit.”