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 respondents in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the respondent is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

Opinion:
OWEN v. HEIMANN.
(Court of Appeals of District of Columbia.
Submitted November 10, 1925.
Decided April 5, 1926.)
No. 1758.
1. Constitutional law <§=93(l) — Patentee has no property right of which he cannot be divested by interference proceedings or suit in equity under statute (Rev. St. § 4904 [Comp. St. § 9449]; Rev. St. § 4915 [Comp. St. § 9460]).
Every patentee takes bis patent with knowledge that his claim to priority may be attacked in manner provided by law, and acquires no property right of which he cannot be divested by interference proceedings, under Rev. St. ■§ 4904 (Comp. St. § 9449), or by suit in equity, under Rev. St. § 4915 (Comp. St. § 9460).
2. Patents <§=l.
Right to patent is purely statutory, with full power in Congress to prescribe on whom and on what terms patent shall issue.
3. Patents <§=97 — Proof that privileges reciprocal to those extended by \oian Act are extended to American citizens by German laws held unnecessary, in view of formal order of Commissioner of Patents, No. 2703, declaring it to be a fact (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, §§ 943la-943lh).
German Foreign Office having certified German patent laws to United States Patent Office, and Commissioner of Patents having declared by formal order, No. 2703, that privileges reciprocal to those extended by Nolan Act (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, §§ 9431a-9431h) are extended to American citizens by German laws, no further proof of such fact is necessary by foreign applicant, claiming benefit oi the act.
4. Patents <§=97 — Proof of German citizenship of applicant for patent, claiming benefit of Nolan Act, by attached oath and reference to prior application, held sufficient in interference proceeding (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, §§ 943!a-943lh).
Proof of German citizenship of applicant ■for patent, claiming benefit of Nolan Act (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, §§ 9431a-9431h), consisting of oath attached to application and reference to prior application, held sufficient in • interference proceeding.
Appeal from the Commissioner of Patents.
Interference proceeding between William Walter Owen and George Heimann. Prom a decision of the Commissioner of Patents, awarding priority to the latter, the former appeals.
Affirmed.
W. A. Scott and C. M. Candy, both of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
•Hans V. feriesen and Paul Kolisch, both of New York City, for appellee.
Before MARTIN, Chief Justice, ROBB, -Associate Justice, and SMITH, Judge of the United States Court of Customs Appeals.
Certiorari denied 46 S. Ct. 637, 70, L. Ed. —.
SMITH, Acting Associate Justice.
George Heimann, on the 30th of December, 1913, filed an application in Austria for a patent for a semiautomatic or automatic graded service telephone exchange system and telephone substation with graded service facilities. On the 7th of January, 1914, Heimann filed an application in Great Britain to secure a patent for the same invention, and on that application a patent was issued, known as No. 450 of 1914.
On May 7, 1917, William Walter Owen filed an application in the United States Patent Office, praying for a patent to new and useful improvements in “measured service telephone systems.” Owen’s application was granted, and letters patent were issued to him by the Patent Office on October 26,1920.
On the 16th of August, 1921, Elsie Hecht, formerly Heimann, administratrix of the estate of George Heimann, deceased, of Berlin, Germany, filed an application in the Patent Office of the United States in behalf of the estate for letters patent for a semiautomatic or automatic graded service telephone system, claim 29 of which, as amended, corresponded to claim 26 of the patent issued to Owen. Because those claims were substantially the same, and substantially claimed the same invention, an interference was declared on the 3d of August, 1922.
On the ground that Owen’s filing date and consequent constructive reduction to practice was subsequent to December 30, 1913, the date of George Heimann’s Austrian application and the date of his constructive reduction to practice, a motion was made on October 18, 1922, by the applicant, Elsie Hecht, formerly Heimann, to shift the burden of proof to Owen, the senior party. As it appeared from Owen’s preliminary statement that he conceived the subject-matter of the count in interference on or about January 31,1917, and that the invention was constructively reduced to practice on the 7th of May, 1917, the date of filng his application, the motion was granted. Owen declined to assume.the burden of proof imposed upon him by that ruling, and, having failed to make any showing why a judgment on the record should not be entered against him, priority of invention of the subject-matter in issue was awarded by the Examiner of Interferences to the administratrix of the estate of George Heimann, deceased. The Board of Examiners in Chief affirmed the decision of the Examiner of Interferences, and the Board’s decision was affirmed by the Commissioner. Erom the Commissioner’s decision this appeal was taken.
• The appellant in support of his appeal contends (1) that the German citizenship of Heimann was not proven; (2) that no evidence was submitted to the tribunals of the Patent Office, proving or tending to prove, that the German empire or the German republic granted to American citizens rights and privileges substantially the same as those accorded by the Nolan Act; (3) that the Nolan Act did not intend to make, and by its terms did not make, the date of the filing of Heimann’s Austrian application effective as Heimann’s date of invention in the United States; and (4) that to construe the Nolan Act so as to make the date of Heimann’s Austrian application effective in the United States as Heimann’s date of invention, would render the act unconstitutional.
The motion to shift the burden of proof alleged that George . Heimann and Elsie Heeht, administratrix of his estate, were German citizens. Elsie Hecht’s application for a patent and the oath attached thereto filed in the United States Patent Office alleged that she was at the time of filing the application a citizen of the German republic. Her application also averred that George Heimann was at the time of his death a citizen of Germany, and as evidence of his citizenship referred to United States patent No. 1,341,801, the application for which filed by George Heimann on August 28, 1913, recited that he was a subject of the German emperor, residing at Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany.
The issuance to Owen of a patent by the Patent Office vested in him no property right, of which he could not be deprived by the interference proceedings provided for by section 4904 of the Revised Statutes (Comp. St. § 9449), or by the suit in equity contemplated by section 4915 of the Revised Statutes (Comp. St. § 9460). The right to a patent is purely statutory and Congress has full power to prescribe to whom and upon what terms and conditions a patent shall issue. Every patentee takes his patent with full knowledge that his claim' to priority of invention may be attacked in the manner provided by law and that if 'it be successfully assailed, his patent is rendered worthless without leaving any ground for complaint that his constitutional rights have been invaded. Seror et al. v. Dick, 55 App. D. C. 151, 152, 3 F.(2d) 92; Kling v. Haring, App. D. C.—, 11 F.(2d) 202 (Patent Appeal No. 1739, decided Feb. 1, 1926); Stewart v. Kahn, 11 Wall. 493, 506, 20 L. Ed. 176.
The German patent laws were certified by the German Foreign Office to the United States Patent Office, and the Commissioner of Patents by formal order announced that they accorded to American citizens privileges substantially reciprocal to the privileges granted by the Nolan Act (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, §§ 9431a-9431h), and that consequently the privileges of the Nolan Act should be extended to German citizens. Commissioner’s Order 2703, 291 O. G. 677. The German patent laws certified by the German office were part of the records of the United States Patent Office, and as they were recognized by an official order, which made it obligatory on patent officials to extend the privileges of the Nolan Act to German citizens, the tribunals of the Patent Office had the right to take judicial notice of such laws, in the same way as judicial, notice is taken of other records of the office. In re Appeals of Drawbaugh, 9 App. D. C. 219, 242, 256, 257, 258; Cain v. Park, 14 App. D. C. 42, 45, 46; Seror v. Dick, supra, 55 App. D. C. at page 152, 3 F.(2d) 92; Scalione v. Bosch et al., App. D. C. —, 12 F.(2d) 171, patent appeal 1824, decided concurrently herewith.
The evidence as to the German citizenship of the applicant and of the inventor, Heimann, may not have been the best evidence, but it was certainly sufficient to establish German citizenship, in the absence of any objection to its competency, and in view of the fact that the opposition to the motion was based on other grounds. See Seror et al. v. Dick, supra, 55 App. D. C. at page 152, 3 F.(2d) 92. We are of the opinion that the German citizenship of the appellee and of George Heimann must, under the circumstances, be taken as established prima facie.
The decision appealed from is affirmed.

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

Choices:

Answer: 0