Derrick Breska

/My focus

My practice is built around helping clients translate technical innovation into durable patent protection, from initial invention evaluation and claim strategy through prosecution and portfolio management. I work with clients at every stage of growth and maturity—from founders building their first IP portfolios to large enterprises managing complex, high-volume dockets across multiple technology domains.

For earlier-stage clients, much of my work is strategic: helping them understand what is protectable, how to prioritize filings given resource constraints, and how to develop a portfolio that will support fundraising and competitive positioning over time. For larger clients, the work shifts toward portfolio management, consistency of prosecution strategy across a large team, and ensuring that the overall portfolio reflects the company's core technology and business priorities.

Across all of that, my engineering background is central to how I practice. I can engage directly with inventors—often in detailed technical discussions—and I bring that depth of understanding into how I draft claims, respond to office actions, conduct interviews with patent examiners, and think about portfolio architecture. I have also helped organizations with little to no prior IP experience develop the internal processes they need to identify and evaluate inventions before they reach outside counsel.

Prior to joining Nixon Peabody, he practiced for more than a decade at Zilka-Kotab, where he contributed to the firm achieving a top-ten nationwide patent firm rating in the USPTO Tech Centers 2100 and 2600.

/Representative experience

Includes experience from prior firms.

• Served as managing outside counsel to a large technology company, overseeing an active patent portfolio of more than 150 matters.
• Counseled emerging technology companies on developing foundational patent portfolios through multiple rounds of investor funding.
• Advised enterprise clients on patent acquisition and portfolio strategy across artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and network security technology areas.
• Helped achieve a top-ten patent firm rating nationwide for several years in USPTO Tech Centers 2100 and 2600, as ranked by Juristat based on prosecution performance and allowance rates.

/Looking ahead

Companies are increasingly strengthening their patent portfolios and seeing more allowances as prosecution strategies tailored to USPTO Alice subject-matter eligibility rejections continue to gain traction.