SAN FRANCISCO — $2.6 billion.

That, according to a lawyer for Uber Technologies Inc., is what a damages expert hired by Google's autonomous vehicle unit, Waymo, has said is at stake under just one of the nine trade secrets set for trial in the knock-down, drag-out fight between the two companies.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who is overseeing the case, said he could see no reason to keep the number under wraps after Uber's lawyer, Susman Godfrey's William Carmody, initially balked at airing it in open court at a hearing Wednesday. Waymo's lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan had marked the figure confidential, Carmody said. But when the Quinn Emanuel lawyers were prodded by Alsup to convince him why the stakes should remain under wraps, they didn't object to Carmody discussing them.