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:
SPANG et al. v. WATSON, Commissioner of Patents.
No. 11508.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued March 13, 1953.
Decided May 7, 1953.
Petition for Rehearing Denied August 21, 1953.
Mr. Cedric W. Porter, Boston, Mass., pro hac vice, by special leave of Court, with whom Messrs. Nathan Heard, Boston, Mass., and Lee L. Townshend, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellants.
Mr. H. S. Miller, Attorney, United States Patent Office, with whom Mr. E. L. Reynolds, Solicitor, United States Patent Office, was on the brief, for appellee.
Before EDGERTON, FAHY . and WASHINGTON, Circuit Judges.
FAHY, Circuit Judge.
Appellants sued the Commissioner of Patents under Rev.Stat. § 4915, to register .the words “Cube Steak” as a trade-mark for meat tenderizing machines. Appellants say the term is “a mark used by the applicant which has become distinctive of the applicant’s goqds in commerce” within the meaning of § 2(f) of the Lanham Trade-Mark Act, 60 Stat. 429 (1946), 15 U.S.C.A. § 1052(f).
The District Court found in substance that this term has not become distinctive of appellants’ goods. It found that appellants’ predecessor used it before them; and appellants “have made great efforts toward policing” it; but it now designates a type of meat that comes from many different sources. The evidence supports these findings. Appellants do not deny that the term “Cube SteaJk” is often used to designate a type of meat regardless of source. Notwithstanding that the term originally designated appellants’ machines and the product of these machines, appellants did not acquire an exclusive right to apply the name after it became generic and no’ longer distinctive of their goods. Singer M’f’g Co. v. June M’f’g Co., 1896, 163 U.S. 169, 16 S.Ct. 1002, 41 L.Ed. 118; Kellogg Co. v. Nat. Biscuit Co., 1938, 305 U.S. 111, 59 S.Ct. 109, 83 L.Ed. 73.
We need not consider whether, as the District Court thought, it necessarily follows that, “Since ‘Cube Steak’ is the generic name of a variety of meat, it is equally the generic name of the machine which makes that variety of meat.” If the use of the words “Cube Steak” as a trade-mark were limited to the machines and if it were found, on sufficient evidence, that customers for the machines regarded the mark as pointing distinctly to appellants as the producers, perhaps a limited registration might he possible. As a common law case affording protection of this limited character, see Bayer Co. v. United Drug Co., D.C.S.D.N.Y.1921, 272 F. 505. The cases of Singer M’f’g Co. v. June M’f’g Co., supra, and Kellogg Co. v. Nat. Biscuit Co., supra, read with Hanover Starr Milling Co. v. Metcalf, 1916, 240 U.S. 403, 36 S.Ct. 357, 60 L.Ed. 713, and United Drug Co. v. Theodore Rectanus Co., 1918, 248 U. S. 90, 39 S.Ct. 48, 63 L.Ed. 141, are not pieclusive of such limited registration, particularly when they are considered in the light of the liberalizing provisions of the Lanham Trade-Mark Act. In a proper case the statute itself authorizes limitations and conditions upon registration: 60 Stat. 430 (1946), 15 U.S.C.A. § 1057(a). See, also, Walgreen Drug Stores v. Obear-Nester Glass Co., 8 Cir., 1940, 113 F.2d 956, 960, certiorari denied, 311 U.S. 708, 61 S.Ct. 174, 85 L.Ed. 459, rehearing denied, 311 U.S. 730, 61 S.Ct. 391, 85 L.Ed. 475. But, as indicated in Kellogg Co. v. Nat. Biscuit Co., 305 U.S. at page 118, 59 S.Ct. at page 113, the application of this doctrine of secondary meaning requires that not merely “a subordinate meaning” but “the primary significance of the term in the minds of the consuming public,” here those in the market for the machine, “is not the product but the producer.” Appellants failed to show clearly that this is the factual situation. On the contrary, the finding of the court that appellants “have not shown that the mark ‘Cube Steak’ as used by them, has become distinctive of plaintiffs’ [appellants’] goods in commerce”, is entirely consistent with the evidence, even though “goods in commerce” be considered as the machines only and not the tenderized meat, and the public be considered only as those who might purchase the machines.
Affirmed.
. Rev.Stat. § 4915 (1875), as amended 35 U.S.C. § 63 (1946), has since been repealed by Section 5, Act of July 19, 1952, c. 950, 66 Stat. 815. It has been replaced by 66 Stat. 803, 35 U.S.C.A. §§ 145, 146:
. “No trade-mark by which the goods of the applicant may be distinguished from the goods of others shall be refused registration on the principal register on account of its nature unless it”, so far as here pertinent, “ * * * is merely descriptive”; and even if descriptive the mark may be registered if it “» * * has become distinctive of the applicant’s goods in commerce. * * *” § 2(f).

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: 99