By Adi Robertson 

Software patents aren't dead, but they just took a blow. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that a series of banking patents didn't cover a concrete software process but an abstract idea, throwing them out and potentially setting a stricter precedent for future patents.

Alice Corp. and CLS Bank are both major financial institutions, and they've been sparring for years in court. The issue is a series of patents that cover a kind of electronic escrow or "intermediated settlement," where a third party holds the real money while "shadow" balances are shown to both sides during trading. In order to preempt a threat from Alice, which held those patents, CLS asked for a court to declare them invalid, saying that the basic idea was obvious and that the patents didn't add more than a generic software process to carry it out. Alice countersued, alleging that CLS had infringed its patents, and the Supreme Court took up the issue in late 2013.

'Apply it with a computer' isn't a valid software patent step

Alice attempted to prove that its patents were more than just an idea by pointing to the specific software steps that it had to carry out. But the court found that these steps weren't ultimately much more than "stating an abstract idea while adding the words 'apply it with a computer.'" The claims "simply recite the concept of intermediated settlement as performed by a generic computer. They do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of the computer itself or effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field." Each of the steps that Alice described were basic computer functions like adjusting account balances, keeping records, and issuing automated instructions, and the finished product didn't transform them into something more than the obvious sum of their parts.

Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank has been one of the most closely watched patent cases of the year. It takes on what patent reform advocates see as the unreasonably broad category of "software patents," which cover a process implemented on a computer rather than a piece of design or a physical invention. Earlier, the case was somewhat hyperbolically said to spell the "death of software patents," but this decision doesn't necessarily stop people from patenting a software "idea," as long as its technical steps are concrete improvements or new designs, not an aggregation of existing steps.

Josh Lowensohn 

 The deal would include both the streaming Beats Music subscription service, as well as the part of the company that produces headphones and speakers. The move, which would be Apple's largest acquisition ever, could be announced as soon as next week, the paper says. Citing sources, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and Recode also confirmed that the deal was nearing completion.

Apple declined to comment, and Beats did not respond to a request for comment.

Beats competes with iTunes

Apple already sells Beats products in its retail stores, and just last month Beats began offering a way to subscribe to its streaming music service using Apple's in-app purchase, something that gives Apple a cut of its subscription revenue. That service competes with Apple's iTunes Radio in part by offering playlists curated by celebrities and musicians, however Beats requires a paid plan that gives users full access to that entire streaming music catalog. In recent months, Apple has said to be developing its own similar service, possibly for use on Android devices, that would augment its own free service.

The music aspect of the deal would come amid declining album and individual track sales, which according to Nielsen SoundScan, were were down 13 and 11 percent respectively in the US for the first eight weeks of the year. Apple's own streaming service iTunes Radio only came out about eight months ago with iOS 7. Apple's used it to push people to buy full versions of the songs from iTunes, though the service has been limited to the US, and only recently Australia.

Beats was cofounded in 2008 by music mogul Jimmy Iovine and rapper Dr. Dre, and initially only made headphones manufactured by Monster Cable. It later began producing its own hardware, including noise-cancelling headphones and its Beats Pill Bluetooth speaker.

Executives from Apple and Beats reportedly met several times early last year, ahead of when Beats went on to launch its streamed music service. According to Reuters, that included meetings between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Beats' Iovine, as well as Apple's iTunes and cloud services chief Eddy Cue.

Apple and Beats execs were meeting in 2013

Making the potential deal intriguing is that Beats has offered some of its technology to Apple rivals in the past. Besides the streaming music app (which is available on Android and Windows Phone), that includes a $300 million deal to put Beats Audio in HTC phones beginning in 2011, and ended just last September. It's also in the business of making portable speakers, which Apple failed at spectacularly with the iPod Hi-Fi in 2006.

Apple's largest acquisition to date was NeXT computer in 1997, which brought cofounder Steve Jobs back into the company, and on a rapid trajectory to become its CEO. Apple spent $404 million to buy NeXT, a figure now worth close to $600 million when adjusted for inflation. The second closest deal was Israeli flash memory maker Anobit, which Apple scooped up for a reported $390 million in December 2011. More recently the company's been buying up a collection of smaller companies without formally announcing them. In an interview last month, Cook said the company had acquired 24 companies in the past 18 months, and was "on the prowl."

• Source Financial Times

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Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he's joining the $1 club, electing to receive a nominal salary for his services as Facebook CEO.

But don't get too worried about his finances. Zuck still posesses personal wealth of nearly $30 billion, much of which is held in Facebook stock.

Bonus fact: The buck-a-year tradition began in World War II, when industry leaders were called on to administer government programs. Because US laws banned the use of unpaid volunteers, they would work for a symbolic sum.

Click through for more execs who have been (at least officially) on a buck a year or less.