IBM Corp. last week added Expedia Inc. and its related travel websites to a list of companies that the tech giant has accused of infringing four patents covering information storage and sign-on technology.

The lawsuit, filed Dec. 29, 2017, in Delaware federal court, came just one day after IBM settled similar litigation against Priceline Group Inc. over the same patents.

In the complaint, IBM said that Expedia and its travel brands Orbitz, Hotels.com and Hotwire Inc. have “built their business models” on the backs of its patents. According to the filing, extended efforts to negotiate cross-license agreements on the companies' patent portfolios had broken down, leading IBM to file its infringement suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

“Because IBM's over six-year struggle to negotiate a license agreement that remedies defendants' unlawful conduct has failed, IBM has been forced to seek relief through litigation,” IBM's attorneys said in the 50-page complaint. “Among other relief sought, IBM seeks royalties on the billions of dollars in revenue that defendants have received based on their infringement of IBM's patented technology.”

Two of the asserted patents were issued in the late 1990s and cover methods for presenting applications and advertisements in an interactive service, IBM said. A third involves programming to preserve information in online interactions between a client and a server and the fourth covers technology that makes it easier for first-time users to connect with a service provider, according to the complaint.

All four patents were also at the center of infringement litigation IBM filed against Priceline and its subsidiaries Kayak Software Corp. and OpenTable Inc. back in 2015. On Dec. 28, IBM announced that it and Priceline had settled that case after the parties agreed to obtain patent cross-licenses to each company's worldwide patent portfolio.

“This agreement further demonstrates the value of our intellectual property that results from this innovation,” William LaFontaine, general manager of intellectual property for IBM, said in a statement. “We are pleased this matter has been resolved through negotiation and licensing.”

The rest of the settlement's terms were not made public, and representatives from both companies did not respond Wednesday to calls seeking comment on the suit.

Meanwhile, another case accusing Groupon Inc. of infringing the same four patents remains pending in Delaware federal court. According to an online docket-tracking service, the sides have been engaging in mediation conferences to “discuss alternative dispute resolutions” in the case.

In the Expedia case, IBM is seeking treble damages and injunctive relief for the alleged infringement.

A call to Expedia's press shop was not returned on Wednesday.

IBM is represented by Kelly E. Farnan of Richards, Layton & Finger and John M. Desmarais and Karim Z. Oussayef of Desmarais LLP.

The case is captioned IBM v. Expedia.