Meizu's been on a tear since our last M8 update. Sitting atop a new 0.9.0.1 firmware release complete with working copy and paste, Outlook calendar synchronization, and a "full backup system," the M8 is now supported by a published SDK and licensed to ride the Chinese airwaves for what looks to be a March, mainland China release. With all the passion it could muster, Meizu posted the following announcement to its English website:

Let's bear witness together, to the great moment of MEIZU formally entering the big stage of mobile phone industry!

Currently, the M8 handset with its iPhone roots (but a WinCE core) is only available to an abiding Chinese press and die-hard Meizu fanatics -- a population said to rival the intensity of Apple's own sheeple elite. Having watched the M8 make the transition from art to part over the last few years, we're mighty stoked at the prospective launch to say the least. And while Meizu has clearly trumped Apple's spec sheet (not user experience) in terms of software (copy paste, background task management, video recording, and plenty more) and hardware (720 x 480 pixel display and beefier silicon), we'll bet there's still enough "inspiration" to get Tim Cook and Apple's legal counsel whipped up into a frenzy of Intellectual Property defense. Latest video after the break.

Read -- Mobile license approval
Read -- SDK release
Read -- firmware 0.9 release

Details are pretty scant at the moment, but Eastman Kodak Company has entered into a mysterious patent license agreement with Nokia. All we're told is that the deal will enable each outfit "access to the other's intellectual property portfolio," and it'll also provide "significant benefits to both companies, [while being] royalty bearing to Kodak." Outside of that, we're left to wonder what's in store here, so what they hey -- we'll take a stab: a Kodak sensor within the not-yet-conceived N97? Or maybe a Kodak-branded printer-scanner-fax machine in the Tube 2? The intrigue is killing us.

[Via phonescoop]

It looks like any hopes that the 4G intellectual property landscape would be a little less of a Qualcomm-controlled minefield are fading fast. Thanks in part to recent acquisitions, a senior vice president pointed out in a recent interview with IDG that the company now owns over 1,000 patents pertaining to OFDM, OFDMA, and MIMO -- technologies which'll prove crucial to 4G data, regardless of the standard(s) that ultimately win out. In other words, whether the networks of tomorrow are banging LTE, UMB, or some flavor of WiMax, Qualcomm's confident that it's in a position to cash in, just as it's doing now. Sorry, Nokia.

[Via mocoNews]

Following yesterday's surprising announcement that patent troll firm NTP is taking portable computing pioneer Palm to court over alleged IP infringement, the PDA and smartphone manufacturer has fired back with a statement detailing its position on the matter. While Palm corroborates NTP's assertion that the latter company had previously approached it about licensing the patents in question, it points out that all seven of them are still undergoing re-examination by the US Patent and Trademark Office, and all signs point to them being ruled invalid once the inquiry is complete. Therefore, Sunnyvale-based Palm has promised to "defend itself vigorously against the attempted misuse of the patent and judicial systems," which is the diplomatic way of saying that NTP won't see one red cent unless they pry it from Palm's cold, dead hands. Since the RIM / NTP fiasco took quite some time to wind its way through the courts, it seems that Palm is making the smart move here by stringing this along until the USPTO makes its final decision, but there's one thing it needs to bear in mind: NTP's got half a billion dollars to blow on legal fees, and since it doesn't actually do anything besides sue people, it can focus all of its energy and resources on this amusing but unhealthy lawsuit addiction.