Intellectual Ventures, a $5 billion patent investment firm lead by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold, is looking at some of the biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley in a effort to further monetize its portfolio of over 35,000 patents.  Following a lawsuit spree dating back to last December, the firm has started a second wave of suits, targeting 12 companies including HP, Dell and Best Buy.

This may be because business is not as strong as it once was, now that we know that Hynix Semiconductor and DRAM maker Elpida both declined to pay royalties to IV.

“The Bellevue, Wash., firm has raised money for years from the likes of Microsoft, Apple and financial investors like Charles River Ventures and endowments like Cornell University and purchased thousands of patents with an eye toward extracting rich licensing fees,” reports Forbes.

“But as IV itself points out in this latest lawsuit, big tech companies are often not inclined to pay patent royalties unless the threat of litigation is robust.”

Patent infringement lawsuits have been especially abundant in Silicon Valley lately. Both Microsoft and Oracle are going after Android; the former in an effort to get royalties from OEMs, and the latter in an attempt to get billions of dollars from Google. Analysts noted that Android may be shut down all together if Oracle will have it its way in court.

Google will have a lot of defending to do in court, but it will most likely go on the offense and file for an antitrust against a $4.5 billion deal in which Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, RIM and Sony acquired roughly 6,000 patents from bankrupt Canadian telco Nortel Networks.

Speaking of Apple, the phonemaker has been sued by Samsung as a retaliation to its own patent infringement claims against the manufacturer.  Is your head spinning yet?