TODAY’S TRADEMARK – MONTGOMERY WARD

Montgomery Ward Inc. is the name of two successive brands related to American retail enterprises. It can be referred to the original Montgomery Ward, a pioneering department store retailer and mail order which operated between 1872 and 2001 and also to the current catalogue and online retailer also known as “Wards”.

Montgomery Ward was founded by Aron Montgomery Ward as a mail order business in 1872. In 1926, the company discontinued its mail-order- only-tradition when it opened its first retail outlet store in Plymouth, Indiana. Wards was a very successful in its retail business. However, by the 1990’s, Wards began to lose its ground to low-price competition from Target and Walmart and eroded its traditional customer base. As a result, Montgomery Ward was liquidated by the end of May, 2001.

In 2004, Direct Marketing Services Inc. (DMSI), and Iowa based direct marketing company, purchased much of the intellectual property assets of the former Wards and applied the brand to a new online and catalogue-based retailing operation with no physical stores “wards.com”, headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The trademark of “Montgomery Ward” was registered in USPTO bearing registration number 1170705 on September 22, 1981.