Following Motorola’s announcement Thursday that it was exploring spinning off its handset division, investor activist Carl Icahn said today that he has notified Motorola once again that he will be nominating his own directors at Motorola’s 2008 annual meeting.

In an SEC filing, Icahn said he picked four candidates:

-- Frank Biondi, Jr.:  former president and CEO of Viacom (NYSE: VIA), and director of Amgen Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) Systems, Hasbro, The Bank of New York and Seagate Technology.

-- William R. Hambrecht: founder, chairman and CEO of WR Hambrecht & Co. and co-founder of Hambrecht & Quist, which was sold to Chase Manhattan Bank.

--Lionel C. Kimerling: a Thomas Lord Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and head of the Materials Physics Research Department at AT&T (NYSE: T) Bell Laboratories from 1981 to 1990.

--Keith Meister: managing director of the Icahn investment funds. Serves on the boards of XO Holdings, WCI Communities and Federal-Mogul Corporation.

Sounds like Icahn believes he will win this time around, given that Motorola is conceding that it may need to change: “Last year Motorola refused to accept my suggestions for additions to the Board and instead engaged in an unnecessary proxy fight, insisting that they had the team and the plan to address Motorola’s problems. We are all painfully aware where that leadership has taken Motorola (NYSE: MOT). I hope that this year, rather than launching another battle, Motorola will instead elect to add my nominees to the Board and avoid another wasteful struggle.”