Tech research & development firm Walker Digital on Tuesday filed 15 patent suits against more than one hundred companies, including software giant Microsoft, online retailer Amazon ans social-networking site Facebook.

Walker Digital, which gave rise to Priceline, said it filed the lawsuits in order to prevent the unauthorized use of its intellectual property rights as well as to recover its investment in innovation.

The firm said that its inventions, which have generated more than $200 million in direct licensing revenues, are protected by more than four hundred issued and pending US as well as foreign patents.

Speaking on the move, Chief Executive Jon Ellenthal said, “We are disappointed that after reaching out to so many companies in an effort to secure reasonable licenses, we were consistently told that without litigation our requests would not be taken seriously.”

Chairman Jay S. Walker, who was described as the "Edison for a New Age by Forbes magazine in 1999, said that they filed the lawsuits to realize a fair return on the use of their intellectual property, and to move the Intellectual Property from the stone age of litigation to an efficient market.

Priceline. com, founded by Walker in 1998, now has a market value more than $20 billion.