SAN FRANCISCO  A clash of technology titans and two of the most powerful executives in Silicon Valley ended on Tuesday with a $1.3 billion federal jury award against SAP for stealing software from Oracle to try to woo away customers.

The award, the largest ever for copyright infringement, comes as big technology companies, including Apple, Google and Motorola, have increasingly resorted to the courts to resolve patent and intellectual property disputes instead of quietly working out a deal. Rarely, however, do the lawsuits go to court or attract the attention this dispute did.

“This is pretty dramatic,” said Robert P. Merges, a technology law professor at University of California, Berkeley. He said it sent a loud message to companies to pay attention to any signs of copyright infringement. “It’s a game-ending home run type of result. It will tell people ‘Hey, we need to be careful.’ ”

The case, tried in United States District Court in Oakland, Calif., had been closely watched in Silicon Valley not only for the amount of money involved but also for the personalities and companies behind the disputes. On one side was Lawrence J. Ellison, the pugnacious chief executive of Oracle and the third-richest man in America, and on the other side were the executives of SAP, who had admitted making illicit copies of Oracle’s software and manuals while insisting that the theft really didn’t cause much damage.