William Mansfield
William Mansfield has worked in the field of intellectual property rights enforcement since 1999. Prior to that year, he served with the U.S. Army as both a paratrooper and in a military intelligence capacity. Upon leaving the service he completed an undergraduate degree in Psychology at Purdue University.
Building upon his training Mr. Mansfield initially joined the I.P. industry as an undercover investigator working for a 3rd party vendor providing trademark investigation services for numerous multinational brand owners. He then rose in the organization to build and manage the comprehensive investigation and enforcement programs for various clients. During this time Mr. Mansfield earned a law degree from Indiana University and eventually became the general counsel of the company.
For the past decade, William Mansfield has been the Director of Intellectual Property for a small FMCGs company that sells primarily in the developing world. In that capacity, he oversaw the expansion of trademark coverage for the company from 1,200 to over 2,000 registered trademarks worldwide. He has traveled to 56 countries in his professional capacity and directed actions in over 120 countries.
A major part of his work has been the aggressive and strategic targeting of major sources and distributors of infringing products originating in China. Just as China is a source for vast amounts of licensed and lawful products that are sold globally, it is also the source point for many counterfeit goods. Over the past decade, Mr. Mansfield has learned how to best make the Chinese intellectual property protection system work for the protection of his in-house brand.
Mr. Mansfield has been further certified in various areas of brand protection and anticounterfeiting by the international police organization INTERPOL, the World Intellectual Property Association, Michigan State University’s Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Protect Protection and the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. Mr. Mansfield has earned an M.B.A. from Indiana University and focuses his studies on how to better identify weak points in the illicit supply chains used by counterfeiters and disrupt their illegal enterprises.
Mr. Mansfield has recently begun taking in outside clients interested in his assistance with brand protection in China and the developing world through his new company, Emergent IP Consulting.