A few weeks ago we spotted the domain name registration for Kumo, a possible new name for Live Search.  Now Joseph Tartakoff at the Seattle PI has noticed that Microsoft has trademarked the Kumo name:

Word Mark
KUMO

Goods and Services
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: computer software and hardware; including computer search engine software and downloadable software

IC 035. US 100 101 102. G & S: advertising services including dissemination of advertising for others via the Internet, business services including providing links to the websites of others, providing consumer and product information

IC 038. US 100 101 104. G & S: telecommunication services, including receipt and delivery of information, messages, documents, images and other data by electronic transmission

IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: education; providing of training; entertainment, including entertainment services via Internet search engines

IC 042. US 100 101. G & S: design and development of computer hardware and software; computer services including search engine services and the providing of downloadable and non-downloadable software

Filing Date
December 4, 2008

Owner
(APPLICANT) Microsoft Corporation CORPORATION WASHINGTON One Microsoft Way Redmond WASHINGTON 980526399

Mary Jo Foley first uncovered the Kumo name last summer, one of what she reported was a number of new branding names for Live Search services.  Now it’s looking more and more like Kumo is emerging the winner.  Even if Microsoft were to make some kind of a search deal with Yahoo!, without acquiring the whole company it wouldn’t be able to use the Yahoo! name, so moving ahead with a rebrand, possibly timed to coincide with a marketing push for Windows 7 and Windows Live later this year, might well be in the works.

Of course we’re a long way off from declaring a name change from Live Search to Kumo, but this has to be more than just a coincidence.