Motorola looks to be gearing up for the launch of a major product or product line known as Motorola Xoom, with the Illinois-based company having been quietly applying for trademarks on that term all over the world since mid-October. Besides the US, where it's one of 48 applications that Moto's filed this year, the mark is also seeking protection in Canada — where it's one of 17 2010 filings from the company —along with the EU and Australia, where it's among five and six 2010 applications, respectively. Even more interesting, this seems to be the only mark that the company has filed for in New Zealand this year, and just one of nine in that country this entire decade. Finally, Motorola appears to have submitted Motorola Xoom to the Taiwanese trademark office most recently, where it looks to be just one of two filings this year, and the only one with English characters.

Taken together, this unusually broad and and diverse set of countries suggests to us that Xoom will play a major role in the company's future plans, considering that it usually doesn't bother to seek trademark protection in some of them — and the marks that it does apply for always get used. If we had to make an educated guess, we'd say that we're looking at the so-called MotoPad that the company will likely launch at CES, as a tablet is one of the few devices that would probably see a worldwide release from the American manufacturer. The fact that Moto is seeking to cover "mobile computers and related accessories, namely, docks, cradles, mounts, holders, stands, carrying cases, covers, protective or decorative covers, batteries, power adaptors, cables, connectors, headsets and speakers; hand held computers, lap top computers, tablet computers, electronic notepads, computers, mobile data communications apparatus," further indicates that this is a non-smartphone product.

First revealed at the D:Dive into Mobile conference earlier this month, the tablet is expected to run Android 3.0 (2.4?) Honeycomb and be powered by a Tegra 2 processor from Nvidia. Besides the CES reveal, no release dates or windows have been rumored.