SAN FRANCISCO — Google engineers and executives knew they needed permission to use Java software tools when they created the popular Android mobile program, but Google went ahead without a license, an Oracle attorney told jurors Monday in federal court.

"This case is about Google's use, in Google's business, of somebody else's property without permission," attorney Michael Jacobs told jurors, outlining Oracle's case against Google as a trial began in a high-stakes lawsuit that could have broad impact on the software industry.

Jacobs cited a series of internal emails from Google executives and engineers, including memos in which Google executive Andrew Rubin complained of difficulties negotiating for a Java license and acknowledging that using Java tools could mean "perhaps making enemies along the way."

While Google denies infringing on any of Oracle's patents or copyrights, attorneys for Oracle are seeking nearly $1 billion in damages and an injunction that could force Google to change the way it uses and distributes Android software.

Oracle acquired the rights to Java when it bought Sun Microsystems, which created the software technology, for $7.4 billion in 2010.

Google will give its side of the case Tuesday, after U.S. District Judge William Alsup spent most of Monday morning screening prospective jurors for the trial. The jury will hear evidence over the next 10 weeks. The trial will feature testimony from a host of Silicon Valley luminaries, including Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page and Google chairman Eric Schmidt, who was chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems when Java was created.

Other witnesses may include Google's Android chief, Andrew Rubin; Jonathan Schwartz, the former Sun CEO; and renowned Sun developer James Gosling, often known as the "father" of Java.

Their testimony could reveal matters that companies usually keep secret, including internal discussions about the creation of a new system like Android and its potential value.

Google lets smartphone-makers use Android for free, but it collects advertising revenue from Internet searches conducted on those devices. The case also raises a key legal question about whether copyright law applies to widely used programming tools — known as application programming interfaces, or APIs. The judge recently characterized the dispute as "the World Series of IP cases," because of its potential significance to intellectual-property law.

Google has denied that Android infringes on the Java patents and copyrights that Oracle acquired last year when it bought Sun Microsystems, where Gosling led the team that created the widely used Java programming system in the early 1990s.

Sun freely distributed the Java programming language, which has been used to create thousands of programs and applications by independent developers and giant tech companies such as Oracle and IBM. But Sun required users to obtain a license for using the Java development tools it created along with the language.

Oracle attorneys have accused Google of using those tools to create Android because Google allegedly wanted its mobile operating system to be quickly embraced by developers who were already used to working with Java. Google, however, has said it used only elements of Java that were freely available in the public domain.

The case is one of several suits in which rival tech companies have complained that Android phones and other gadgets infringe on various patents. In most of those cases, Apple or other plaintiffs have sued the makers of Android devices but not Google. Oracle is suing Google directly in this case.

Alsup's rulings since Oracle originally filed suit in August 2010 have narrowed the focus of the highly complex case. At one time, Oracle's experts contended Google might owe as much as $6 billion in damages. However, after Oracle was forced to withdraw five of its seven original claims of patent infringement, the bulk of the dispute now centers on whether Google violated Oracle copyrights by using 37 Java APIs in the Android software.