Redboss Games founder Jan Rezab has published an unbranded presentation on his blog which compares several mobile games to similar titles on the same or other games platforms.

The presentation is unbranded, but Rezab suggests it's being shown to operators by EA Mobile, with Gameloft's games featured in five out of the seven slides published on his blog.

They include side-by-side comparisons of Guitar Legend and Guitar Hero, Bubble Bash and Puzzle Bobble, and Nitro Street Racing and Need For Speed Carbon.

However, Eidos' SolaRola and Falcon Mobile's 3D Formula Racing also get their own slides. We contacted both EA Mobile and Gameloft for this article, but both preferred not to comment.

Would it be a surprise if EA Mobile was keen to remind operators to the unoriginality of mobile games released by its rivals? Not particularly.

Would it be the only example of a publisher trying this kind of tactic? Certainly not. Indeed, at least one rival publisher has targeted EA Mobile in its own operator presentations in the past, over the performance of its games on low-end handsets.

In other words, the new presentation (whoever was responsible) isn't particularly surprising or especially underhand.

It's questionable how effective it would be in any case, since the games managers at operators are paid to pick games that will sell well, not arbitrate in arguments over who copied who. At least, you'd hope that's the case.

There's undoubtedly a good debate to be had around the originality (or otherwise) of mobile games, and where the line falls between taking inspiration and passing off.

Would Sony have taken action against SolaRola if it had been a PSP game? What would Activision's view be if Guitar Legend was released for PS3? And isn't it more important that Bubble Bash is better than Puzzle Bobble, rather than simply being a pale imitation?

But it's a debate worth having out in the open, and even in a courtroom if publishers really are infringing copyright. The latter hasn't happened, but hopefully the former can take place at one of the upcoming industry conferences.