palmOne to use Palm brandname

palmOne today announced a $30 million agreement with PalmSource to acquire full rights to use the Palm brand name.

palmOne will pay PalmSource $30 million for PalmSource's 55 percent share of the Palm Trademark Holding Company. Payment will be made in installments over 3.5 years. palmOne will change its company name to Palm, Inc. later this year. As part of the agreement, palmOne has granted PalmSource certain rights to Palm trademarks for PalmSource and its licensees for a four-year transition period.

Since the spin-off of PalmSource from Palm in 2003 both companies co-owned the Palm brand.

Ed Colligan, palmOne's president and CEO, claims Palm is a brand with significant customer awareness and earned loyalty. He says innovation, power, ease of use and elegance are all elements associated with the Palm brand. They plan to invest to turn what is a strong name today into a household word synonymous with leadership in mobile computing.

Later this summer the company will unveil a new logo and design treatment and in Fall new products will be launched under the Palm name instead of palmOne.