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:
RITE-NAIL PACKAGING CORP., A Corporation and Donald B. Halstead, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. BERRYFAST, INC., A Corporation, Defendant-Appellant. RITE-NAIL PACKAGING CORP., A Corporation and Donald B. Halstead, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BERRYFAST, INC., A Corporation, Defendant-Appellee.
Nos. 82-4159, 82-4171.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Argued and Submitted Sept. 17, 1982.
Decided May 19, 1983.
Francis A. Even, Fitch, Even, Tabin, Flannery & Welsh, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellant cross-appellee.
John D. Pope, Ill., P.C., St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiffs-appellees cross-appellants.
’ Before BROWNING, Chief Judge, PRE-GERSON and POOLE, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Rite-Nail Packaging Corporation and Donald B. Halstead sued Berryfast, Inc., for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 3,432,895, the Halstead patent, issued in 1969 for a machine for packaging nails in plastic strips for use in a power-operated nailing gun, and for breach of a license agreement under that patent. Berryfast counterclaimed, seeking declaratory judgment that the Hal-stead patent was invalid, -recission of the license agreement, and restitution of royalties paid. The district court held the Hal-stead patent invalid and approved recission of the license agreement, but denied restitution. Both parties appeal. We affirm in part and reverse in part.
I.
The district court held the Halstead device was anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 2,503,518 — granted to C.E. Slaughter in 1950, 15 years before the Halstead patent was issued — and was obvious in light of the Slaughter patent. 35 U.S.C. §§ 102, 103.
Both patents disclose a machine for encapsulating elongated objects in plastic strips by extruding hot plastic directly on the articles. However, they differ .in some respects. For example, Halstead employs a “carrier means” or “carrier wheel” for feeding the articles into the portion of the device where they are encapsulated in hot plastic, while Slaughter states only that the objects “may be fed” into the molding mechanism “either manually or by automatic machinery.” This difference is sufficient to undercut the district court’s conclusion that the Halstead device was “anticipated” by Slaughter. “Unless all of the same elements are found in exactly the same situation and united in the same way to perform the identical function in a single prior art reference there is no anticipation.” Jones v. Vefo Inc., 609 F.2d 409, 410 (9th Cir. 1979).
We agree with the district court, however, that the Halstead device was “obvious” in light of Slaughter. Slaughter was not considered by the patent office in issuing Halstead, and the Halstead patent therefore is not presumed to be valid. Penn International Industries v. New World Manufacturing, 691 F.2d 1297, 1300 (9th Cir.1982).
Rite-Nail distinguishes Slaughter from Halstead in several respects which appellee characterizes, we think accurately, as essentially “semantic differences.” These include the use by Slaughter of two “compression members,” described as “cylinders” having a series of “peripheral chambers or grooves,” to receive and hold the objects during encapsulation with plastic, while Halstead employs two “plastic molding wheels with circumferentially spaced teeth” to perform this function. Similarly, we see no substantive difference between Hal-stead’s “extrusion” of two streams of hot plastic “onto the objects” from opposite sides, and Slaughter’s “dropping” of the objects “into the convergence of two [extruded] preformed sheets” of hot plastic.
Rite-Nail’s principal reliance, however, is upon Halstead’s provision of a “carrier means” to feed articles into the portion of the device in which encapsulation occurs, and the absence of such a provision in Slaughter, except in a most general form. The district court rejected this contention on the ground that “the carrier wheel in the patent in suit is an old means for transporting articles in succession along a prescribed path, as the Plaintiffs themselves concede,” and the combination of this old element with the old extrusion process for encapsulating articles in hot plastic did not produce “a new and surprising or unusual result,” as required to justify a patent on a combination of old elements.
The district court applied the correct legal principle, see Sarkisian v. Winn-Proof Corp., 688 F.2d 647, 650 (9th Cir.1982) (en banc), and nothing in the record would support a conclusion that the addition of a carrier wheel to Slaughter’s mechanism for encapsulating elongated objects in hot plastic produced a new and surprising result rather than simply the result to be expected. This analysis does not disregard the “subject matter as a whole,” 35 U.S. § 103, as Rite-Nail suggests. Viewing Halstead’s combination of old elements as a whole, it does not reflect a new and surprising result.
Rite-Nail argues that failure of efforts by others to develop a machine to produce clips of nails for nailing guns, and the commercial success of the Halstead device, establishes the non-obviousness of the Halstead device to persons “of ordinary skill in the art.” If that were so, such “secondary” factors as commercial success, long-felt but unsolved needs, and failures of others would be sufficient without more to establish patentable inventions — but clearly they are not. Bristol Locknut Co. v. SPS Technologies, 677 F.2d 1277, 1281 (9th Cir. 1982). One reason is that obviousness is to be determined on the hypothesis that the person of ordinary skill in the art, who is the judge of obviousness under section 103, is aware of all pertinent prior art. Cool-Fin Electronics Corp. v. International Electronic Research Corp., 491 F.2d 660, 662 n. 7 (9th Cir.1974); Walker v. General Motors Corp., 362 F.2d 56, 60 n. 3 (9th Cir.1966). Even the patent office examiner was unaware of Slaughter, the most pertinent prior art, and nothing in the record suggests that persons of ordinary skill working in the field were better informed.
Because we agree with the district court that the Halstead patent is obvious in light of the prior art, we do not discuss the additional bases offered by Berryfast to invalidate the patent.
II.
Berryfast paid royalties under the license agreement from 1965 through the first quarter of 1970, then ceased payment without explanation. On September 18, 1970, Berryfast notified Rite-Nail that it believed the patent was invalid, and that it would make no further payments. On February 7, 1973, Rite-Nail gave written notice of termination of the license agreement. On September 24, 1973, Rite-Nail filed suit to recover royalties due from April 1970 to the date of termination. The district court denied recovery.
Rite-Nail argues that because the licensing agreement provided that royalties would be paid until a final and unappeala-ble declaration of invalidity, and because of the provisions of a California statute governing recission of contracts, Cal.Civ.Code § 1689 (West 1973), the district court erred in refusing to award unpaid royalties accrued prior to a final determination of patent invalidity.
Federal patent policies favoring early adjudication of patent validity prevail over the provisions of state law and private contract in determining whether to award unpaid royalties accrued under an invalid patent. Lear, Inc. v. Adkins, 395 U.S. 653, 670-75, 89 S.Ct. 1902, 1911-13, 23 L.Ed.2d 610 (1969); Bristol Locknut Co. v. SPS Technologies, 677 F.2d at 1282; St. Regis Paper Co. v. Royal Industries, 552 F.2d 309, 312-14 (9th Cir.1977). Provisions of ‘state law or private contract to the contrary notwithstanding, a licensee under an invalid patent may not be required to pay royalties which accrue under the license agreement after the licensee “takes an affirmative step that would prompt the early adjudication of the validity of the patent, such as filing an action contesting the patent’s validity or notifying the licensor that the payments were being stopped because the patent was believed to be invalid.” Bristol Locknut Co. v. SPS Technologies, 677 F.2d at 1283.
Although a licensee need not institute suit challenging the validity of the patent, mere nonpayment of royalties is not enough. See American Sterilizer Co. v. Sybron Corp., 614 F.2d 890, 896-97 (3d Cir. 1980); PPG Industries v. Westwood Chemi cal, 530 F.2d 700, 706 (6th Cir.1976). The licensee must clearly notify the licensor that the licensee is challenging the patent’s validity. Bristol Locknut Co. v. SPS Technologies, 677 F.2d at 1283. Since Berryfast did not give such notice until September 18, 1970, it remained liable to Rite-Nail for royalties that accrued from April 1, 1970, through September 18, 1970, but no more.
Berryfast contends it should be allowed to recover all of the royalties it paid under the agreement because Rite-Nail fraudulently induced Berryfast to enter into the agreement. See St. Regis Paper Co. v. Royal Industries, 552 F.2d at 314. We do not reach the question. The district court found that Berryfast had not proved fraud, and this finding is not clearly erroneous.
III.
The trial court’s rejection of Berryfast’s request for an award of attorneys’ fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285 may be reversed only for abuse of discretion. See SSP Agricultural Equipment v. Orchard-Rite Ltd., 592 F.2d 1096, 1101-02 (9th Cir. 1979); Pickering v. Holman, 459 F.2d 403, 408 (9th Cir.1972). None has been shown.
The judgment is affirmed except for the denial of Berryfast’s claim for royalties for the period April 1, 1970, to September 18, 1970. That portion of the judgment is reversed and remanded to the district court for determination of the amount due.
Each party shall bear its own costs.
. Rite-Nail argues the district court improperly rescinded the licensing agreement since a second patent, U.S. Patent No. 3,303,632, was covered under the agreement, preventing a complete failure of consideration. The district court found the device patented under No. ’632 to be inoperable. In the trial court Rite-Nail did not rely upon the inclusion of this apparently worthless patent in the license agreement as a. ground for sustaining the agreement. We therefore decline to consider the contention on appeal. Confederated Tribes & Bands of the Yakima Indian Nation v. Washington, 608 F.2d 750, 752 (9th Cir. 1979); Evans v. Valley West Shopping Center, 567 F.2d 358, 361 (9th Cir. 1978).

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: 0