Instead of specifying attributes on the connection URL, you can specify attributes as properties in a Properties object that you pass as a second argument to the DriverManager.getConnection method.
For example, to set the user name and password:
Properties p = new Properties();
p.setProperty("user", "sa");
p.setProperty("password", "manager");
p.setProperty("create", "true");
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(
"jdbc:derby:mynewDB", p);