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Most companies that scored a high-profile recruit like IP lawyer Sanjay Prasad would trumpet it by blasting press releases at the tech and law media. But when you're Intellectual Ventures, the remarkably secretive -- and fast-growing -- Seattle patent holder, you don't even put his profile on your Web site.

Formed in 2001 by Nathan Myhrvold and Edward Jung, respectively the former chief technology officer and chief software architect at Microsoft Corp., the company has been buying, creating and licensing intellectual property at a fast clip. With so many patents (and a rising number of lawyers), big tech companies have voiced concerns about the power of IV's patent portfolio.

Seven months after Prasad, former chief patent counsel at Oracle, joined, the company remains characteristically vague about what he's been up to, and the description is bound to feed observers' curiosity: He's developing licensing programs for Intellectual Ventures' patent portfolios. The company isn't ready to give any details on that, but Peter Detkin, the company's vice-chairman, is clearly happy to have him on board.

"I think it shows that we can hire the best people in the field, which is what we want to do," said Detkin, a former high-ranking Intel lawyer who joined Intellectual Ventures in 2002.

Intellectual Ventures has doubled its size since last fall, hiring around 200 new people, bringing the total to nearly 400. The company plans to open five offices in Asia this year, a project that Prasad will be working on. It's also in the midst of raising $2.5 billion from investors, according to media reports.

"You can attract a lot of good people when you have that kind of money," observed Ron Laurie, who heads the IP consulting firm Inflexion Point Strategy in Palo Alto, Calif.

Although the bulk of Intellectual Ventures' employees are in Seattle, the Palo Alto outpost has grown from Detkin to 15 people in the last two years. That includes engineers, financial analysts and executives. On the legal front, the company has hired a corporate associate from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Melissa Kosciusko, as well as Prasad.

"I think IV is a natural match with Sanjay's talent," said Edward Reines, an IP partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges who works with Oracle. "Sanjay is just the latest patent specialist to cut their teeth at big Silicon Valley companies and move on to, shall we say, more entrepreneurial opportunities."

Prasad worked at Bamer & Witcoff and Fenwick & West before joining Oracle in 1998. He left Oracle in late 2005 to join IPValue, an IP transaction firm in Mountain View, before joining Intellectual Ventures in February.

"It was a tough opportunity to pass up," Prasad wrote in a brief e-mail. "It's a talented group of people, and they're doing some really innovative things."

Other companies in the patent monetization industry have also been adding patent lawyers. IPotential, an IP investment bank in San Mateo, has added patent lawyers from firms like high-end Kirkland & Ellis in the past year.

Kate Patterson, a recruiter specializing in intellectual property with Patterson Davis Consulting, said that opportunities for IP lawyers in the patent monetization field continue to grow. But she emphasized that it takes someone who knows more than just the ins and outs of patent law.

"What it takes to make it in that world is a sophisticated appreciation of business, not just the law," Patterson said.

While at Oracle, Prasad might have seemed like an unlikely candidate for Intellectual Ventures. He spoke out in favor of patent reform, such as limiting how much money patent-holding companies, sometimes derided as "trolls," could win in infringement suits. Now he's working for a company that hasn't sued anyone for patent infringement, but certainly has enough IP to make a lucrative business at it.

Last week, Detkin reinforced Intellectual Ventures' mantra that the company doesn't play the litigation game. He said the company has been successful licensing its patents without going to court.

"We've done a lot of outbound licensing deals -- to the tune of several hundreds of millions of dollars' worth," Detkin said without elaborating.

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