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The O2 'Talk Simple' advertising campaign at the centre of the dispute features four symbols that are, give or take a few strokes of neon, the same as PlayStation's unmistakable control pad buttons and brand icons.

What then, was O2 thinking to let this campaign see the light of day?

There are three possible scenarios. The first, that the similarity between the set of symbols is entirely coincidental, is also entirely implausible.

Were mmO2 vice-president of marketing Will Harris and Vallance Carruthers Coleman Priest creative director Rooney Carruthers to make the argument, the rest of the marketing industry would have to form an orderly queue behind me to pay to see it.

The symbols do, however, each represent O2's immediate rivals: an orange square for Orange, a pink T for T-Mobile and a red V for Vodafone. Harris has been around the mobile block a few times, as client and as WCRS account man for Orange, where he triumphed in a legal dispute with Vodafone over a comparative price ad. So it is possible that Harris was more alert to the visual depiction of competitor networks in the ad, and their reaction, than any left-field assault by Sony.

The third scenario is the most troubling. The proposition of the 'Talk Simple' ads is straightforward - 50 texts and 50 minutes of free calls to any network for £10 a month - and by comparison, the oblique PlayStation reference looks gratuitous, at best. There is an unfortunate trend among ad agencies at the moment to be oh so pleased with themselves when they parody the original and occasionally brilliant work of others - witness the raft of copycats that followed Levi's 'Odyssey' ad by BBH last year.

Advertisers, for reasons best known to themselves, buy these ads, while agencies generally get away with it - creatively, financially and legally.

The O2-Sony case is unlikely to set legal precedent, but sooner rather than later a communications dispute will change the ground rules for us all.

Brand equity, and the customer communications that help to build it, are too valuable as assets to allow others to dilute their power. The law as it stands is predicated on whether the customer will confuse the two brands, and whether sales will be lost as a result. In this, advertising cases have often failed where product and packaging cases have succeeded. It can only be a matter of time before the efficacy of advertising is proved in a court of law - and brand owners find their marketing investment properly protected.

Analysis, page 19.