It"s been three years since Driver: Parallel Lines, Atari"s last crack at the franchise before Ubisoft acquired the license and development staff. Now it seems they"re at last about ready to show what they"ve made of it, as Superannuation (via Joystiq) has picked up on a new trademark for "Driver: The Recruit" on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database.

Obviously nothing is known about the game yet, other than that this at least appears to be title for it. As Joystiq notes, it was revealed a fifth Driver game was in production at Ubisoft since last summer, so couple that with what seems to be the selection of an official title, and it looks likely that Ubisoft might be gearing up to give the game some exposure soon (maybe an unveiling at E3 in June?).

The original Driver on the PlayStation was regarded at the time as the closest thing to a 3D Grand Theft Auto there was... until Rockstar made Grand Theft Auto III for the PS2. Since then, the Driver series has failed to make much of an impact with each successive sequel, so it"ll be interesting to see if Ubisoft can turn things around.