However, the fact that the judge wanted the CEOs to attend the mediation indicates that he believes a lot is at stake, said patent expert Florian Mueller. "He previously said that this lawsuit could cost Google billions, and if he didn't believe at this (even more advanced) stage that there's a whole lot of money at stake, he would probably be fine with negotiators who don't have the ultimate decision-making authority (except for board approval) in their organizations," when Alsup first recommended Ellison and Page.

The companies are battling over the way in which Google's Android handles Java applications. Oracle accuses Google of copying parts of Java in Dalvik, the virtual machine in Android that runs Java applications. Google denies wrongdoing.

The IDG News Service