Say what you will about Nathan Myhrvold's business -- and we know that you will -- but his Bellevue-based Intellectual Ventures is apparently doing very well financially with its strategy of licensing patents.

The former Microsoft technology chief mentioned at a conference last night that Intellectual Ventures posted $700 million in licensing revenue last year. That's according to a report by MarketWatch, which confirmed the figure with an IV spokesperson who added that the company's cumulative licensing revenue to date has reached $2 billion.

Intellectual Ventures has licensed patents to a long list of companies, with recent announcements involving SAP, Samsung Electronics and HTC. Verizon last year licensed a patent from Myhrvold's firm as ammunition in an intellectual property dispute with TiVo over DVR technology.

Previously on TechFlash: Nathan Myhrvold's latest idea: Self-sanitizing surfaces ... Inside Nathan Myhrvold's brain.