(CNN) - The share price of Samsung Electronics dropped more than 7% in early trading Monday morning as investors had their first opportunity to react to Friday's more than $1 billion decision against the Korean electronics giant by a California jury for infringing on Apple patents.

Samsung dropped 6.3% at the open of South Korea's Kospi index and was down about 7% at noon Seoul time, after dropping as much as 7.7%. The tumble erased $12 billion from the company's market value Monday morning.

Samsung is planning to appeal Friday's decision of a U.S. federal jury which awarded Apple $1.05 billion for copying the look and feel of iPhones and iPad design. The jury rejected Samsung's counterclaims against Apple.

A senior Samsung executive told the Korea Times the decision was "absolutely the worst scenario for us" as he was heading into an emergency meeting at the company's Seoul headquarters on Sunday.
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(CNN) - For more than a year, Chris Bayer, a Canadian student, waited tables alongside Chinese migrant workers in a restaurant in Shanghai. While there he received an intimate glimpse of what work life is like for millions in mainland China.

"Nothing was ever really clear," said Bayer, who is now back in Canada. "In the West, people state their mind. In China, there was no sharing of ideas. When it came to new processes, no one ever offered any input. There was no teamwork. People were so afraid of doing something wrong."

Though Bayer's circumstance in China was rare - a foreigner working alongside migrant workers in local eateries is not common - his experience in a Chinese workplace is one that experts say is common.

Whether a restaurant or a massive company, businesses in China revolve around perplexing power structures, where innovative thinking is often stymied, partly by an education system that prioritizes rote memorization over creative thinking, and partly because employees are afraid of offering input that might insult the intelligence of their boss.
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(CNN) – A South Korea court ruled that both Apple and Samsung violated each other’s patents, in a case that mimics legal battles between the electronics giants around the world.

The Seoul District Court ruled that Samsung must pay $33,350 for infringing two of the intellectual property rights for Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Apple was found to have infringed Samsung’s Wi-Fi technology, and must pay $22,000 in damages.

The court banned sales in South Korea of Apple’s iPhone 4 and iPad 2, Samsung’s Galaxy SII and Galaxy Nexus smartphones and Galaxy Tab and Galaxy 10.1 tablet computers.
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(CNN) – Facebook’s purchase of Instagram hasn’t closed yet, but a cottage industry of online companies is seeking success on the back of Instagram’s popularity. Websites and apps are creating new business models, technology and choices for printing the pictures you take on your mobile phone.

LA-based Instacanvas says it just raised $1.7 million in seed financing. Their website allows you to upload your Instagram photos and print on canvases or acrylic photo glass. Printing costs between $39 and $79, depending on size. And you could even make some money: Instacanvas allows you to sell your photos to other users.
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Just days after Apple won favorable back-to-back U.S. court rulings in its legal battle against Korean electronics maker Samsung, the technology giant reached a monetary settlement on Monday to end a long-running legal dispute with a China-based electronics firm.

The Guangdong high court in southern China said that through mediation, Apple agreed to pay Proview US$60 million over ownership of the iPad name in China. In its lawsuit, Proview alleged that it still owned the China rights after its iPad trademark was acquired by the Cupertino, California, company in 2009. FULL POST

(CNN) – Apple isn’t the only global smartphone maker having a good week.

Samsung overtook Apple in the first three months of the year to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor and ended Nokia’s 14-year run as the largest maker of all phone handsets by volume, according to research release Friday by Strategy Analytics.

The South Korean electronics giant reported Friday a record net profit of $4.44 billion in the first quarter, led by strong mobile sales.
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(Image credit: Getty Images)

(CNN) – Samsung is predicting a record boost to its profits for the start of 2012, thanks to burgeoning smartphone sales.

The South Korean technology giant expects an operating profit of $5.15 billion for the first three months of the year - almost double the figure it reached a year ago, according to its press release. FULL POST

New York (CNN) – When I interviewed Research in Motion founder Mike Lazaridis two years ago at the launch of the Blackberry Torch, he was convinced the product would revive Blackberry’s fortunes because, “People don’t want to carry around two devices, they just want to carry one.”

He was right about that, but wrong about the device people wanted.

Thursday RIM announced a 23% drop in sales in the fourth quarter.  A recent Nielsen survey found only 5% of U.S. consumers buying a new smart phone chose a Blackberry.  It is a spectacular fall from grace for a company that pioneered push email and made their devices so indispensible they were nicknamed ‘Crackberrys.’

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Hong Kong, China – After a white knight failed to come to its financial rescue Monday, Japan’s biggest memory chip maker – Elpida – filed for bankruptcy protection.

The company's been running from a $5.5 billion specter of debt, but now lays claim to the unenviable title of being the biggest Japanese manufacturer to file for bankruptcy protection since World War II.

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Barcelona (CNN) - It seemed only fitting that I use my mobile phone to make my way to Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress, so for the first time I downloaded my boarding pass to my iPhone, checked in while on a bus, and handed my phone to the British Airways check-in staff upon arrival at Terminal Five. She did not blink an eye. I'm not sure why I waited so long to fully use the BA app.

Then, of course, I promptly turned my phone off after getting to the gate, and then had to stand aside to restart the damn thing (why does the iPhone take so long to boot up?).

Lesson learned.

Then we were packed into the A321 full of tech geeks and gurus. I had a look around and saw the normal amount of iPhones, BlackBerrys and iPads. But I also noticed a healthy number of Nokia phones with Windows OS. Nokia’s Lumia phone was a star at the CES in January. We await Nokia's press conference Monday to see what handsets Europeans can get their hands on.
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