Cellphone manufacturer Hop-On Inc today announced that they have won their motion against PalmSource (aka ACCESS Systems America) for use of the trademark "Graffiti Wireless". The decision by the United States Patent and Trademark Trial and Appeals Board ruled that the lawsuit filed last year by PalmSource unlawfully prevented Hop-On from using their approved trademark and has resulted in "undisclosed damages".

Said Hop-On's attorney, Christopher Clark: "The requirements for service of any federal lawsuit were not appropriately met by the plaintiff..." In their press release, Hop-On said the decision meant the company had "finally been vindicated by the courts as being victimized by simple violation of basic court processes". Palmsource was not available for comment. You can read the press release from Hop-On here.

KeyLight 2 is a new application that gives you full control over the keyboard lights on your Treo. The program allows you to customize the keyboard backlight behavior for different applications, activities and times. You can set which apps will use the keylights, switch them off during calls and even have them flash when you receive a new email or sms message.

KeyLight 2 v2.2 is available now with a seven day demo trial. It costs $6.95 to register, but is currently on sale for $4.95 for a limited time. At this time it is only compatible with the Treo 680 and 650.

Palm has quietly decided to let Verizon Treo 700p owners in on the updated version of VersaMail shipping with the new Treo 755p and the Sprint 700p ROM update. A quick check of Palm's support page for the Verizon version of the 700p reveals slightly modified install instructions:

"After you install the Treo 700p Update, you must upgrade your version of VersaMail to 3.5.4, which includes the Exchange ActiveSync Update. Get it here after you install update."

Toysoft has released a major update to its FakeCall Treo utility. Fake Call is a program that is intended to give Treo owners a way to escape impromptu office meetings and unwanted social interactions -- by accurately simulating incoming phone calls. The app gives you a number of clever and discreet ways to activate fake calls at your command. For example you can simply switch the silencer slider or schedule a specific time via an appointment or alarm and your phony call will come in. The program is designed to be identical to the Treo's usual calling screens and will even simulate a voice on the other end of the line.

FakeCall v2.1 for Palm OS is available now with a free trial period. It costs $6.95 USD to register. It is compatible with the Treo 600/650/700P/680/755.

SplashData's other new app, SpashTravel, was released last year in its initial 1.x version. May 18th brought about the release of the overhauled 2.0 version of the app in both Pro and Standard variants, featuring live global weather data, live foreign currency conversions, and live flight and airline info . The SplashTravel team has not been sitting by idly since May, as the app is currently up to version 2.14, released on the 5th of this month. This is mostly a bugfix release but with weekly updates to the program occuring since May, SplashTravel should continue to see additional new features and improvements added in the near future.

SplashTravel 2.0 Professional edition is available as a monthly ($6.95/mo) or annual subscription ($49.95 yearly). A standard edition is also available which forgoes the subscription pricing and leaves out the live weather and flight info for $29.95 USD.

My poor Treo 700p has been dying the slow death of a failing digitizer that constantly needs recalibration for the past few months. As soon as the Sprint version of the 700p MR was released online, I became determined to try and hold out until the Verizon version of the update was available or the Verizon version of the Treo 755p was released. I was also curious to see if there would be any incremental hardware changes in the nearly fourteen months between when I purchased my early 700p and when I received this like-new “refurbished” Treo pre-loaded with the 1.10 update.

Read on for my full overview of the Verizon 700p maintenance release update.

Palm has finally posted the long awaited Verizon Treo 700p maintenance release. Much like the earlier Sprint version of the update, both a Hotsync'd updater and a direct SD card executable are available. Windows Vista, Macintosh, and IT/enterprise users are encouraged to use the SD card update process. This new version brings the Verizon Treo 700p up to version 1.10.

Palm today has issued a new v1.22 software update for the Treo 700w and 700wx on Verizon Wireless. The update brings a number of new features including native A2DP support, for Bluetooth Stereo Headphones, High-speed dial up networking over USB and Bluetooth, Today screen improvements and hands-free enhancements.

The AP is reporting that the Federal Trade Commission has approved Elevation Partners $325 million purchase of a 25% stake in Palm Inc., without imposing any conditions.

The Federal Trade Commission included the Elevation-Palm deal on a list of transactions Thursday that received an "early termination" of their antitrust review. Early termination refers to the completion of a review before the end of a 30-day waiting period specified under antitrust law.

After a few quiet weeks, Palm's corporate blog has been updated with two embedded YouTube videos. The short videos (approx. 4 minutes total runtime) contain footage of Jeff Hawkins going into additional detail about the inspiration behind the Foleo and why the Foleo's instantaneous response will lead to a more pleasing user experience.

The blog post, dated July 11th, concludes with a few links to notable Foleo stories from around the web, including Brighthand's hands-on article and a ZDNet interview with the Foleo product manager giving another hands-on tour of the product.

SpeakSMS is a new Treo utility from Toysoft. The program will attempt to read your incoming sms text messages to you in the ubiquitous synthesized computer voice. Besides speaking messages back to you, the program can also interpret and properly decode many of the text messaging shortcut abbreviations in use today and you can define your own as well. It also has the ability to display a photo picture ID on the new sms screen.

SpeakSMS v1.0 is available now with a free trial. It costs $9.95 if you decide to keep it. It is compatible with the Treo 650/700P/680/755.