There's fresh evidence today that Microsoft is planning to do something with the "Kumo" name, possibly making it the new brand for its Live Search engine. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley cites additional Kumo-related domain names that appear to have been registered on the company's behalf. As noted last week, the company also appears to control the kumo.com domain.

But the "Kumo" trademark is a different matter. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a person identified as Dascar Samira Facendo, of Venezuela, filed for a trademark on the Kumo name earlier this year, under the general classification of search engines. (LiveSide.net noted the trademark filing in a post last week on the possible Kumo rebranding.)

Therein lies a mystery. Why did this person file for the trademark registration? Is there any affiliation with Microsoft? I haven't been able to reach Facendo to ask about the trademark filing, so the possible implications for Microsoft aren't clear.

As LiveSide's Kip Kniskern pointed out via e-mail today, the trademark filing was made just a week after Mary Jo Foley's report Aug. 1 on the potential use of Kumo (among other possible names) as the new Live Search brand. That makes it seem as if the person may have filed for the trademark based on the report, possibly hoping for a big payout from the company.

Domain records suggest that the same person has been squatting on the edu.edu domain name since the late 1990s.

 If anyone has any insights into this, please let me know at toddbishop@bizjournals.com.