Brian Drozd is an associate in the Charlotte office of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough.  Mr. Drozd concentrates his practice in intellectual property with a focus on patent preparation and prosecution.  He is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office since 2003 and has experience counseling clients regarding IP matters and drafting and prosecuting domestic and international patent applications for many Fortune 500 and other top companies. He is also admitted to litigate cases in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.

Mr. Drozd has gained training in mechanical, electrical, and computer technologies.  Mr. Drozd earned his Bachelor of Science, cum laude, in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UNC-Charlotte and then went to Duke University where he earned two Masters Degrees: a Master's of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Master's in Engineering Management.  He was an electrical engineering research assistant while at Duke, specializing in electromagnetic field matter, including researching, building, and testing various antenna designs.  

During and after his graduate studies at Duke, Mr. Drozd worked as an electrical engineer/software developer and manager for a start-up industrial microwave company in Research Triangle Park, N.C.  He researched, developed, and built large microwave applicators used in large international companies for heating and/or drying various materials.  For the year prior to entering law school, Mr. Drozd worked as a patent agent at a law firm in Research Triangle Park.  

In his practice, Mr. Drozd has represented a number of Fortune 500 companies in the cellular phone, electronics, computer engineering, software, mechanical, aerospace, and banking (business method) industries. Mr. Drozd's practice also includes patent invalidity and infringement investigations and opinions, freedom-to-operate opinions, reexamination requests, trademark procurement and prosecution, transactional/licensing matters, and intellectual property litigation. While Mr. Drozd represents many large international companies, he also assists start-up companies in their intellectual property needs, including patent and trademark investigations and procurement.

In 2012, he was selected for inclusion in North Carolina Business magazine's 'Legal Elite,' a roster of North Carolina attorneys selected by their peers as the most effective in their practice areas. Also in 2012, he was selected by his peers for Thomson Reuters’ North Carolina Super Lawyers© Rising Stars list.

Mr. Drozd regularly lectures and publishes associated articles on various topics in intellectual property, including recent developments in patent and trademark law. Some of Mr. Drozd's past publications are:

• Published, "Provisional patent applications: benefits and filing considerations," TechJournal South, Nov. 12, 2010
• Drozd, R. Brian, "The Duty of Candor and Sanctions in the International Trade Commission," 8N.C. J.L. & Tech. On. 8 (2007), http://cite.ncjolt.org/8NCJOLTOnlineEd
• Drozd, R. Brian and Joines, William T., "Comparison of coaxial dipole antennas for applications in the near-field and far-field regions," Microwave Journal, vol. 47 no. 5 (2004), pp.160-176
• Drozd, R. Brian, Presentation of Fabrication of Hard-Drive Read Heads Using Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) Effects, Thin Films Conference, San Francisco 1998
• Jack Jean , Xuejun Liang , Brian Drozd, Karen Tomko , Yan Wang, "Automatic Target Recognition with Dynamic Reconfiguration," Journal of VLSI Signal Processing Systems, v.25 n.1, p.39-53, May 2000

Mr. Drozd is also an active member of the community as well as various local and national organizations, including:

• American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA)
• American Bar Association: Intellectual Property Division (ABA)
• North Carolina Bar Association:  Intellectual Property Law Section
  • Patent Law Committee
  • Co-Chair - Electrical Engineering/Computer Software Committee
• Mecklenburg County Bar Association
• Triangle Intellectual Property Law Association (TIPLA)
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Registered Patent Attorney
• Carolina Patent, Trademark, Copyright Law Association (CPCTLA)