Hip-hop may have little to do with high tech. But its experience carries a stark warning for the future of technology. High-tech behemoths in a range of businesses like mobile computing and search and social networking have been suing one another to protect their intellectual property from what they see as the blatant copying and cloning by their rivals. Regardless of the legitimacy of their claims, the aggressive litigation could have a devastating effect on society as a whole, short-circuiting innovation.

The battle raging over smartphone technology is the latest case in point. Since 2010, Apple and Microsoft have led a frenzy of patent and copyright litigation against the makers of smartphones running Google’s Android operating system, hoping courts around the world will force their rivals to pay license fees, remove features from their devices or even leave the market altogether.

Apple and Microsoft have spent billions to acquire the patent portfolios of old technology companies to bolster their case. Though Google has mainly played defense, its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility and its thousands of patents have helped Android device makers go on the offensive.

The confrontation could have a reasonable outcome — a détente in which the companies licensed each other’s technology on reasonable terms and coexisted in peaceful rivalry. But the smartphone wars could easily escalate, reducing competition in mobile computing and, like hip-hop mash-ups, knocking technologies out of the market for good. This would defeat the very purpose of intellectual property law.

Patents on inventions, like copyrights on songs, are not granted to be fair to their creators. Their purpose is to encourage innovation, a broad social good, by granting creators a limited monopoly to profit from their creations. While companies like Apple may believe they are insufficiently compensated for their inventions, the evidence often suggests otherwise. The belief that stronger intellectual property protection inevitably leads to more innovation appears to be broadly wrong.