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.
Your specific task is to determine the total number of appellants in the case. 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:
FORD et al. v. MARZALL, Commissioner of Patents.
No. 10905.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued Oct. 10, 1951.
Decided Dec. 6, 1951.
Harvey L. Lechner, of the Bar of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa., pro hac vice, by special leave of Court, with whom C. Willard Hayes, Washington, D.C., was on the brief, for appellants. William M. Cushman, Washington, D. C., also entered an appearance on behalf of appellants.
E. 'L. Reynolds, Sol., United States Patent Office, Washington, D.C., with whom Joseph Schimmel, United States Patent Office, Washington, D.C., was on the brief, for appellee.
Before CLARK, WILBUR K. MILLER and WASHINGTON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
This is a suit to obtain a patent under R.S. § 4915, 35 U.S.C.A. § 63, covering a process for making chintz and other lustrous fabrics. The principal claim in the patent application reads as follows: “22. The process of imparting durable lustrous mechanical effects to cellulose and regenerated cellulose fibers and fabric, which comprises sizing the material with a water solution containing a polysaccharide carbohydrate and an aldehyde selected from the group consisting of formaldehyde, para-formaldehyde, glyoxal and acetaldol, drying the material to dampness, imparting a lustrous mechanical finish to the material by a pressure mechanical finishing machine, and curing the treated material by heating the material to from substantially 280° F. to substantially 400° F.”
In refusing a patent to appellants, the Patent Office relied on the disclosures of the prior art, chiefly as reflected in patents granted to Horst, et al., No. 2,099,765, on November 23, 1937, and to Lippert, No. 2,148,316, on February 21, 1939. The District Court upheld the action of the Patent Office. We have not been persuaded of the incorrectness of these determinations. Claim 22, as quoted, can fairly be read on the two patents mentioned, taken collectively if not individually; Horst and Lippert both teach the composition of a water sizing solution in formulas closely similar to appellants’, and Lippert further teaches the drying, finishing and curing of the treated fabric. The distinction now urged upon us by appellants is that their process involves the use of an excess of aldehyde beyond that which will react initially with the polysaccharide carbohydrate, so as to produce a second reaction between the excess aldehyde (“free aldehyde”) and the cellulose of the fabric during the curing process. But that teaching is not set out in the basic claim. Claim 25 specifically covers “the process of Claim 22 in which an excess of aldehyde over the amount required to react with the carbohydrate is employed.” Claim 22, accordingly, must stand or fall without reliance on the step separately described in Claim 25. See In re Seabury, 23 App.D.C. 377, 381. The teaching of Claim 25 in itself is hardly patentable, in view of the similar disclosures in Exhibit 9 of the Horst patent and the testimony of appellants’ witness that the difference in the final product brought about by the excess aldehyde was but slight. In re Haller, 87 F.2d 520, 24 C.C.P.A. 887.
Appellants also contend that the Lippert process results in the impregnation of the fibers of the fabric with unpolymerized material, which is then polymerized, whereas their own process results in the coating of the fibers with a substance already polymerized and having a molecular structure too large to penetrate or impregnate the fibers. Assuming for present purposes that this contention is factually sound, and also that appellants’ process brings about an improved product, the difficulty remains that the basis of the improvement and the means of producing it are not elucidated in the claim, when read against the prior art. See Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Corp., 1950, 340 U.S. 147 at page 149, 71 S.Ct. 127, 95 L.Ed. 162.
The judgment of the District Court dismissing the complaint will accordingly be
Affirmed.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 3