Palm phones could be making a comeback, thanks to Alcatel Onetouch

Palm may not be dead yet. Photo: Anthony Goto/Flickr

Palm may not be dead yet. Photo: Anthony Goto/Flickr

Some might say HP threw in the towel on Palm and its webOS software a little too prematurely, but it seems another hardware manufacturer may be willing to give it another chance. Alcatel Onetouch appears to have purchased the Palm brand from HP, but it’s currently unclear what the French company intends to do with its new trademarks.

The team over at webOSNation.com has been keeping an eye on Palm since HP gave up on it, and earlier this month, they noticed that the palm.com URL had begun redirecting to mynewpalm.com. Two weeks later, the Palm logo we’re already familiar with was added to that website, along with a banner that reads “Coming Soon.”

For the first time in years, there was a sign that the Palm brand was about to make a comeback.

Since then, documents filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office show that the Palm trademarks have been transferred to a company called Wide Progress Global Limited — and they are the only trademarks this company currently holds. There’s nothing particularly exciting about that, until you consider that the Vice President of WPGL is also the President of Alcatel Onetouch and parent company TCL.

While this is all speculation at this point, it seems as though Alcatel Onetouch has acquired the Palm trademarks — under a shelf company — and has already begun doing something with them. It seems unlikely it would acquire them for no reason, so it’s not too crazy to believe Palm-branded smartphones and other devices could be about to make a comeback.

Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely any future Palm devices would run webOS, which actually had a lot of promise. But at least there’s still some hope for Palm.