There was already no love lost between Verizon and Cablevision, who are engaged in a heated competitive battle in the NY Metro market. Verizon's now upped the ante, and according to Light Reading has filed suit against Cablevision for violating five DVR patents. As is usually the case in these patent fights, several of the patents are incredibly vague and broad, like technology that "allows users to navigate available programs by channel, and through the selection of an anchor channel, by category."

According to Verizon, these patent violations are causing "immediate and irreparable harm to Verizon's business." Not too surprisingly, Cablevision disagreed, and fired some high-test snark in Verizon's direction.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that Verizon is having difficulty competing on the merits in the marketplace, so they are resorting to filing lawsuits and pursuing regulatory bailouts," stated Cablevision, in apparent reference to our story earlier this week that suggested Verizon wants taxpayer money to continue their FiOS deployment.

Luckily for Cablevision, the company is planning to migrate away from the kind of set top DVRs this patent fight covers (the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 4250HD, Explorer 8300HD, and the 4200HD set-top box models), and toward a network-based DVR that stores content at the network head end. "By year-end we intend to cease buying physical DVRs as we begin deploying our network-based DVR solution throughout our footprint," Cablevision COO Tom Rutledge recently stated on a Cablevision earnings call.