Other companies such as eBay, Cisco Systems and General Electric bought licenses to use Java, but Google "broke the basic set of rules governing the Java community," Jacobs said.

Some big Silicon Valley names are expected to be called to testify in the trial. Oracle's witness list includes its CEO, Larry Ellison, Google CEO Larry Page, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and former Sun CEOs Scott McNealy and Jonathan Schwartz.

Before jury selection took place Monday, Alsup had to settle some last-minute disputes between the two sides.

Google thought it would be unfair if Oracle were allowed to tell the jury it paid $7.4 billion to buy Sun, because it might inflate the value of Java in the minds of the jurors.

"They've been dying to throw that number around," Robert Van Nest, an attorney for Google, told the judge.