Dobrivoje Božić was born in Raska, he lived in Kraljevo, and he studied at the High Technical School in Karlsruhe and Dresden, where, among others, his professor was Rudolf Diesel. After the completion of his studies, in 1911, he got a job in Serbian State Railway where he started the research work on the improvement of the Westinghouse air brake. As a volunteer and engineer, he participated firstly in the Balkans wars, and then in the First World War, where he fought at the Battle on the Mountain of Cer. In the period 1919-1931, his most significant inventions were created from the field of breaks for railway carriages and for that, he was awarded the certificate from the International Union of Railways for the use in the international traffics. Bozic is responsible for the solution of the distributor for air brakes with three working pressures, which later became the foundation for the all known solutions of railroads break systems. His invention is known in the expert circles as the “Božić’s Brake”. In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in those days, it was not possible to produce brake systems, so Božić sold his patents to Škoda for 400,000 USD, but he protected the interests of his country and made possible for the Yugoslavia State Railway to use them free of charge.
By selling his patents, Božić acquired a property that he invested in industry and real estates, and one of them was the newly built villa in Krunska Street 69 in Belgrade where the Bozic family moved in in 1939.
Dobrivoje Božić has, so far, 62 discovered patents, not only from the field of brake systems for railway carriages. Patents of Božić were granted in 18 countries, based on 14 basic patents registered in France, ex Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Germany and Poland.