Melissa Dangond

Melissa Dangond Crews is a Florida Intellectual Property Attorney focused on international trademark procurement and portfolio management, as well as domain names, technology licensing, and consumer protection law. A Miami native, Mrs. Crews is a Colombian-American fluent in both English and Spanish.

Melissa practices in all aspects of international trademark clearance, preparation, filing, prosecution and maintenance including before the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), the Madrid System administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and works with foreign associates to perfect rights before the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO), the Instituto Mexicano de la Propiedad Industrial (IMPI) and IP offices throughout Latin America.

Mrs. Crews further assists clients in opposition and cancellation matters before the USPTO Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), ICANN domain name arbitrations, trademark disputes under 15 U.S.C. § 1114(1), cybersquatting under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, false advertising under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a), dilution under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(c), Federal and Florida state unfair competition matters, and disputes brought under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA).

Mrs. Crews provides general counseling and licensing for NIL (name, image and likeness) matters for Florida athletes. She also advises on Florida's rapidly changing landscape regarding e-commerce advertising, artificial intelligence, rights of privacy, rights of publicity as well as statutory compliance under Florida's Fictitious Name Act (Fla. Stat. § 865.09), Florida's CHOICE Act and related restrictive covenant laws, AI-generated content in political communications (Fla. Stat. § 106.145), Florida's revenge porn law (Fla. Stat. § 784.049), Florida's Digital Bill of Rights (Fla. Stat. §501.702 et seq), and Florida's law protecting against AI-generated deepfakes (Fla. Stat. §836.13).

Melissa graduated with honors from UF Law with certificate degrees (specialties) in both Intellectual Property and Environmental, Land Use, and Real Estate Law. Mrs. Crews served as a member of the Journal of Technology Law, was a member of the Latino Law School Association, and studied abroad in Costa Rica. While pursuing her legal education, Melissa worked at UF Innovate as a Material Transfer Agreement Fellow where she drafted, edited, and negotiated material transfer contracts.

Prior to law school, Mrs. Crews graduated from Boston College with a degree in biology (and minor in Environmental Studies). During her junior year, Melissa studied abroad at Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain. As part of her coursework, Melissa was part of a semester-long research project where she studied the evolutionary conservation of genes in methionine synthesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. She also took several classes at Boston College Law where she wrote and presented on FDA regulation of cosmetics and natural resource remedies.

Before leaving Miami for her undergraduate studies in Boston, Melissa attended and graduated from Palmer Trinity School in Miami.