What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
United States of America,
Plaintiff, Appellant
v
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendant, Appellee.
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendants, Cross-appellants
v
United States of America.
Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
of the Board
Plaintiff, Appellants,
v
United States of America,
Defendant, Appellee.
This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
Note that if an individual is listed by name, but their appearance in the case is as a government official, then they should be counted as a government rather than as a private person. For example, in the case "Billy Jones & Alfredo Ruiz v Joe Smith" where Smith is a state prisoner who brought a civil rights suit against two of the wardens in the prison (Jones & Ruiz), the following values should be coded: number of appellants that fall into the category "natural persons" =0 and number that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials" =2. A similar logic should be applied to businesses and associations. Officers of a company or association whose role in the case is as a representative of their company or association should be coded as being a business or association rather than as a natural person. However, employees of a business or a government who are suing their employer should be coded as natural persons. Likewise, employees who are charged with criminal conduct for action that was contrary to the company policies should be considered natural persons.
If the title of a case listed a corporation by name and then listed the names of two individuals that the opinion indicated were top officers of the same corporation as the appellants, then the number of appellants should be coded as three and all three were coded as a business (with the identical detailed code). Similar logic should be applied when government officials or officers of an association were listed by name.
Your specific task is to determine the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the appellant is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

Opinion:
AMERICAN HOIST & DERRICK COMPANY and T. S. DeCuir, Plaintiffs-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, v. The MANITOWOC COMPANY, INC., Defendant-Appellee, Cross-Appellant.
Nos. 78-1523, 78-1524.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Argued Jan. 10, 1979.
Decided July 30, 1979.
Glen O. Starke, Andrus, Sceales, Starke & Sawall, Milwaukee, Wis., for plaintiffs-appellants, cross-appellees.
Philip H. Mayer, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee, cross-appellant.
Before SWYGERT and BAUER, Circuit Judges, and EAST, District Judge.
Honorable William G. East, Senior United States District Judge for the District of Oregon, sitting by designation.
PER CURIAM.
In these alleged patent infringement proceedings, the plaintiffs American Hoist & Derrick Company and T. S. DeCuir appeal from the judgment dismissing the action entered by the District Court on February 27, 1978. The defendant The Manitowoc Company, Inc. cross-appeals from a separate judgment of even date dismissing its counterclaims.
We note jurisdiction and for the valid reasons stated in the District Court’s opinion, 448 F.Supp. 1372 (E.D.Wis.1978), the several judgments are each affirmed. We are satisfied that the District Court’s opinion provides sufficient and correct answers to the various contentions of the appellants and cross-appellant on this appeal.
We do note, however, a strained and inconsequential inconsistency in the District Court’s opinion. The District Court first opined, 448 F.Supp. at 1383-84:
“The issue, as I view it, is whether the roller carrier of the accused Ringer cranes constitutes ‘a platform mounted for horizontal rotation.’ I find that it is. The roller carrier rides atop the encircling ring, thereby providing horizontal rotation. The mast and boom are pivotally mounted to the roller carrier, which serves as a platform. Therefore, I find that the mast and boom are pivotally mounted on a platform for horizontal rotation, as described in the DeCuir patent.”
And inconsistently at 1384:
“To summarize, all of the accused Ringer cranes lack two of the elements described in claim 12 of the DeCuir patent: (1) ‘mobile support means,’ and (2) a mast and boom pivotally mounted on the platform. Furthermore, two of the accused Ringer crane models, the 4600 Series II and III, lack power means for pivoting the mast. Accordingly, I find that the accused cranes do not infringe claim 12 of the DeCuir patent.”
In view of the opinion as a whole, we take the District Court’s language “(2) a mast and boom pivotally mounted on the platform” to infer that the word “platform” was intended to mean a mobile platform. The boom and mast on the Ringer crane are pivoted on a boom carrier which rides directly on the ring which, however, is immobile during lifts.
Furthermore the District Court concluded, 448 F.Supp. at 1384, that:
“Since claim 13, referring to the ‘mast and boom stop means,’ and claim 14, referring to a means connected to the boom for supporting a load, incorporate by reference the apparatus claimed in claim 12, there can be no infringement of those claims either. 35 U.S.C. § 112.”
To find infringement, the Court must determine that every element of a claim alleged to be infringed must be found in the accused device, Mobil Oil Corp. v. Filtrol Corp., 501 F.2d 282, 291 (9th Cir. 1974)— that the accused device is a copy “either without variation, or with such variations as are consistent with its being in substance the same thing.” Engelhard Industries, Inc. v. Research Instrumental Corp., 324 F.2d 347, 351 (9th Cir. 1963), quoting Burr v. Duryee, 68 U.S. 531, 573, 17 L.Ed. 661 (1863). Therefore, even if only one of the two or three reasons for non-infringement is sustained, the conclusion of non-infringement remains intact.
The judgments of the District Court are affirmed.
AFFIRMED.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 2