“Conestoga” is an English word for the Susquehannock people of Pennsylvania, and as such has given its name to a variety of place locations around the US and Canada. However, the word has become best known in association with the Conestoga wagon, a burly hauler first made in a small Pennsylvania town of the same name, used to ship people and goods across rugged terrain as the United States expanded towards the Pacific.

I got curious about the branding cachet of “Conestoga” – it’s clearly something that has a longstanding and good reputation, but it’s also an antiquated item rather than up-to-date technology.

Active / Inactive and Class Breakdown

Int’l Class	Registered and active	Pending and active	Inactive and previously registered	Inactive and never registered
3	0	0	1 Avon Products	0
7	0	0	1 Parker Sweeper	0
9	1 Conestoga Wood Specialties	0	0	0
11	1 Norman Hoover Welding	0	1 GNI Waterman 1 Hydro-Temp	0
12	3 Aero Industries 3 Conestoga Wagon Co.	0	1 Aero Industries 1 Bill Rivers Trailers 1 Richard Hoover 1 Sperry Corp.	1 Annalisa Gojmerac & Francois Dor 1 Carlisle Intangible 1 Conestoga Custom Products 1 Alan Kirk 1 Laverne Owen 1 Space Services
16	0	0	1 Metropolitan Museum of Art	0
18	0	0	1 Akona Adventure Gear	1 Ron Carriere & Charles Lindner 1 TAC Holdings
19	1 C B Structures	0	0	0
20	2 Conestoga Wood Specialties	0	0	1 Quaker Maid Kitchens 1 Ron Carriere & Charles Lindner
22	0	0	0	1 Ron Carriere & Charles Lindner
25	0	0	0	1 Davidson Shoe
28	0	0	1 Conestoga Wagon Works 1 Konestoga Korral Products	0
29	2 Conestoga Meat Packers	0	0	0
30	4 C. H. Guenther & Son LLC	0	0	1 Pepperidge Farm
31	0	0	0	1 Conestoga Energy Partners 1 John W. Eshelman & Sons
33	0	0	0	1 W.A. Haller
35	0	1 Conestoga Ceramic Tile Distributors	1 Conestoga Steaks	1 The Conestoga Group
36	1 Conestoga Bank 1 Conestoga Capital Advisors	0	1 Conestoga Capital Advisors 1 Conestoga Family of Funds	3 Conestoga Capital Advisors 1 Paul Trudea 1 The Conestoga Group
37	1 C B Structures	0	1 C B Structures	1 Paul Trudea
38	0	0	4 Conestoga Enterprises	0
39	0	0	0	1 Club Conestoga
40	1 Conestoga Wood Specialties	0	0	0
42	1 Conestoga Ceramic Tile Distributors 1 Conestoga Wood Specialties	0	0	1 Conestoga Steak House
43	2 Conestoga Ranch	0	0	0

The trends in the current trademark registrations are clear: transportation goods (obviously) and construction goods and services (building on the wagons’ rugged reputation) are the most popular, with ranch and food-related services and products following behind. There was also a pair of co-existing registrations in the financial space, again playing on the reputation for ruggedness and timelessness. Historically, those trends generally held, with a few additional more marks playing on the geographic meaning more than the historical wagon meaning scattered in.

Interestingly, several of the current registrations for CONESTOGA are for wagons in Class 12, and owned by the Conestoga Wagon Co. The company makes luxury versions of wagons in the classic Conestoga shape, and extremely nice-looking ones at that. It seems to have encountered no distinctiveness objections under Section 2 during examination, but the registrations seem vulnerable to a challenge on those grounds.

There are an almost never-ending set of concerns for companies when selecting a brand. We hope this dive into the brand impression of the CONESTOGA mark and how companies are using it was informative!