PRACTICE AREAS
HIGH PROFILE CLIENT REPRESENTATION
Mr. Mangano is more than comfortable representing high-profile clients. He has done so throughout his career and continues to do so. For the last ten years, Mr. Mangano has handled virtually all aspects of internationally renown personal development experts Bob Proctor and Sandra Gallagher’s legal and business affairs. Shawn’s representation of Mr. Proctor and Ms. Gallagher has involved such issues as trademark disputes raised by Exxon Mobil Corporation and The Napoleon Hill Foundation.Mr. Mangano has also represented and served as an expert witness for Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea, which was nationally covered by numerous media outlets. In doing so, the court qualified Mr. Mangano as an expert in Nevada real estate law and he proceeded to negotiate the resolution of a substantial real estate asset held in the State of Nevada.In addition to the above matters, Mr. Mangano has also successfully litigated claims asserted by multi-diamond and platinum selling recording artist Michael Jackson concerning a treasure trove of personal items listed for auction at the former Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Some of Mr. Mangano’s other notable clients include the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, Wynn Resorts, Limited, Don King, Don King Productions, Inc., the International Boxing Federation, IBF junior welterweight champion Vince Phillips and KLA Corporation.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION
From the beginning of his legal career, Mr. Mangano has always been captivated by the concepts of intellectual property rights and how to protect/enforce them. It was this unique interest that led to him seeking out opportunities to learn about intellectual property protection and enforcement, which initially resulted in him actively participating in the registration of numerous trademarks for one prominent Las Vegas hotel and casino while also helping shut down the unauthorized use of another hotel and casino’s registered trademark.
Mr. Mangano continued his interest in enforcing intellectual property rights by moving to Palo Alto, California so he could practice with a national law firm employing over 300 lawyers. In doing so, Shawn was thrust into the position of lead intellectual property associate counsel responsible for overseeing and coordinating the efforts of a team of twenty other lawyers defending and prosecuting patent infringement claims on behalf of a publicly traded corporation. In his position as lead intellectual property associate counsel, Mr. Mangano deposed several named patent inventors, multiple Russian mathematicians testifying through translated testimony and various patent attorneys responsible for prosecuting the patented technology at issue. Shawn, despite pushback from several senior attorneys assigned to the matter, identified, filed and succeeded in obtaining summary judgment on non-infringement grounds in favor of the publicly traded client, which resulted in a published opinion by the federal district judge overseeing the dispute. By doing do, Mr. Mangano secured dismissal of a claim that exposed the client to over $120M in potential damages.
Mr. Mangano’s experience additionally includes copyright protection and enforcement. Quite simply, Mr. Mangano has filed more copyright infringement matters in the State of Nevada than any other attorney. Moreover, Mr. Mangano’s copyright infringement experience extends to such jurisdictions as the State of Colorado and the State of South Carolina. While enforcing the rights at issue in these cases, Shawn helped enlist some of the top copyright experts and practitioners in the country, including William Patry and Dale Cendali, who is known for representing the likes of J.K. Rowling and others.
Mr. Mangano’s experience as an intellectual property litigator has placed him in the unique position of being able to evaluate potentially protectable trademark, service mark, copyright and trade secret material with a complex understanding of how to enforce any or all of these rights, if needed, in court. Mr. Mangano’s extensive litigation experience is particularly valuable in evaluating current trademark/service mark and trade secret usage in order to create an overall intellectual property protection strategy aimed at securing protectable rights while minimizing potential civil liability.
LITIGATION
The core of Mr. Mangano’s legal expertise is in the courtroom. He has represented clients in numerous trial courts throughout the country, which includes appearances in Nevada, California, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware and Massachusetts. Mr. Mangano has personally tried civil litigation matters before the Eighth Judicial District Court for the State of Nevada and the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. Mr. Mangano’s trial experience encompasses multiple evidentiary hearings seeking injunctive relief, bench trials and jury trials.
Mr. Mangano's litigation experience includes helping stop the theft of corporate assets and accounts in a partnership dispute that involved multiple days of evidentiary hearings in the State of Arizona. Mr. Mangano has also secured the surrender and extinguishment of certain security interests in two publicly held national monuments, which was affirmed on appeal by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Moreover, Mr. Mangano served as co-counsel in a multi-million dollar arbitration involving the largest mobile home park west of the Mississippi River, which resulted in Mr. Mangano’s clients prevailing on all asserted claims and an award of attorneys’ fees and costs incurred by them during the dispute.
APPELLATE & POST-JUDGMENT
Mr. Mangano is intimately familiar with the fact that a trial court judgment does not automatically result in a client collecting upon a monetary award entered in his or her favor. Rather, just as a trial is a unique part of the legal process, enforcing and collecting upon any resulting judgment is a separate, unique part of that same process. In this regard, Mr. Mangano is believed to be one of the only attorney’s in the State of Nevada to have successfully added a non-party judgment debtor to a jury verdict post-trial while additionally executing the awarded judgment against the debtor’s slot route gaming revenue. Mr. Mangano was also instrumental in the Supreme Court of Nevada’s decision defining the nature of permissible assets eligible to be secured against at trial court judgment, thereby staying enforcement proceedings during the appellate process.
Mr. Mangano has successfully argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has also facilitated the filing of numerous appeals, including those based on emergency circumstances, before the same court. Mr. Mangano has also argued before the Supreme Court of Nevada. He additionally has experience filing and responding to expedited filings with the Supreme Court of Nevada seeking extraordinary relief.
BUSINESS FORMATION
Selecting the appropriate corporate entity structure through which to operate is a critical consideration for any entrepreneur or new business. These concerns include not only the appropriate type of corporate entity, but also the structure through which the business is operated on a daily basis and controlled through its ownership structure. Mr. Mangano has counseled numerous domestic and international clients on the considerations involved when selecting a corporate entity and has formed those entities once they have been selected. Shawn has additionally helped clients decide on organizational structure suited for his, her or their particular needs and circumstances. From a single member limited liability company to a complex limited partnership with international partners, Mr. Mangano can help you select the corporate entity most suitable for your needs.
BRAND CREATION & PROTECTION
Mr. Mangano has extensive experience securing and protecting a variety of intellectual property rights throughout his career. From patents to trademarks to trade secrets, Mr. Mangano has helped protect, enforce and defend these rights on behalf of numerous clients – including publicly traded companies. Protecting, enforcing and defending these distinct intellectual property rights has also provided Shawn with a unique understanding about what businesses should consider when selecting and creating a brand. Simply put, most businesses neglect to consider brand protectability and enforceability before launching a new venture. Often, it is not until these businesses receive a “cease and desist” letter from another entity using the same or similar brand that a company realizes they have selected a problematic trademark, service mark or trade name for conducting business.
Mr. Mangano has dedicated numerous hours counseling clients about brand creation concerns, which includes performing trademark, service mark and additional evaluations before authorizing clients to proceed with branding their products and/or services. In doing so, Shawn has saved multiple clients time, money and capital by confirming or identifying whether or not rights exist for the brand sought to be protected. Once again, most entrepreneurs and new business entities fail to research whether their intended brand or brands are capable of intellectual property protection before embarking on the costly journey of starting an enterprise. Mr. Mangano stands as an asset for any such entrepreneur or new business entity by understanding, researching and advising whether or not a particular brand is viable and capable of protection/enforcement.
OPERATIONAL GUIDANCE & PROTECTION
In addition to counseling entrepreneurs and new businesses on brand protection and enforcement, Mr. Mangano also has significant experience protecting businesses on an operational basis. As General Counsel and Executive Vice President of PGI, which operates globally, Shawn has addressed countless issues designed to protect and enforce rights internally and externally.
In this regard, Mr. Mangano has extensive experience drafting and implementing employment agreements, independent contract agreements and non-disclosure agreements for staff and third parties doing business with a client’s company. Moreover, Mr. Mangano has developed considerable expertise in preparing website terms and conditions, privacy policies, spam policies and client enrollment agreements in live and online programs. In short, Shawn understands entrepreneur and business requirements necessary to document, protect and enforce the agreements, policies and procedures that are commensurate with any successful operation.
NIL RIGHTS & PROTECTION
Name, Image and Likeness (“NIL”) is a previously unrecognized, and authorized, means for NCAA college athletes to capitalize on their notoriety. Before NIL rights were recognized, college athletes were prohibited from receiving payment from outside sources. A series of federal court decisions, however, compelled the NCAA to change their approach to such revenue sources. In short, the NCAA has now taken the position that it will defer to state laws regulating NIL rights and, if no state law has been enacted, it will defer to common law principles until overarching federal legislation is adopted, which may or may not occur.
The NCAA’s shift in its position additionally acknowledges that athletes need professional help in order to navigate and explore their newly recognized NIL rights. As such, college athletes are expressly authorized to engage professional services, such as attorneys and agents, to assist in securing compensation for use of their NIL rights.
At its core, NIL rights are intellectual property rights. For instance, copyright holders have the ability to grant, or restrict, the way persons and entities use their protected content. Thus, a copyright holder can allow one licensee to use his or her content to display, reproduce, perform and create derivative works from their protected work. These same concepts apply to NIL rights. To begin with, the rights can be broken down to include the following categories: (1) name; (2) image; and (3) likeness. Each of these individual rights may be licensed by an athlete. Moreover, each of these distinct categories can be licensed based on their anticipated use. As such, an athlete can license his or her NIL rights based on the type rights (name, image and/or likeness) together with the type of anticipated use. Consider the following scenario, an athlete can license his or her image (photo) for use in a billboard, while concurrently licensing his or her likeness in a commercial for another entity. One conveyed right is for use of a static photo of the individual. The other conveyed right is for use of the individual’s likeness together with a potential speaking role endorsing a product. To date, it appears that most NIL rights are being conveyed collectively without regard for revenue streams that could be realized from employing a more traditional, intellectual property-based approach.
Our firm uses its extensive intellectual property experience to identify and help assist clients the various revenue streams available to them. From trademarks, copyrights and beyond, identifying ways to capitalize on potential income attributed to intellectual property rights is a highly specialized aspect of our practice that has been developed through years of complex litigation and asset creation/protection experience. If you have NIL right questions, Strategic Counsel is here to help.