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:
VIP FOODS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. VULCAN PET, INC., Defendant-Appellant.
No. 81-1273.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.
March 22, 1982.
Rehearing Denied May 12, 1982.
R. Michael Booker and James L. Shores, Jr., of Shores & Booker, Birmingham, Ala,, for defendant-appellant.
James R. Head of Head & Johnson, Tulsa, Okl., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before SETH, Chief Judge, and McKAY and SEYMOUR, Circuit Judges.
McKAY, Circuit Judge.
This matter was set for oral argument, but for the convenience of counsel was continued. Thereafter, this three-judge court unanimously determined, after examining the briefs and the appellate record, that oral argument would not be of material assistance in the determination of this appeal. In addition, the court solicited specific briefing on .the point which is determinative of this appeal. See Fed.R.App.P. 34(a); Tenth Cir.R. 10(e). The cause is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
This is an appeal from a district court order awarding $18,535.00 in attorneys’ fees to the plaintiff in a suit seeking relief under the Oklahoma Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Okla.Stat.Ann. tit. 78, §§ 51-55, and the Federal Trade-Mark (Lanham) Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1051-1127. Plaintiff uses the registered trademark “VIP” on various food products for human consumption; defendant manufactures and sells pet food under the mark “V.I.P.” The defendant was found liable for violations of both the federal and state statutes, although the court found “no intent to deceive or confuse the public, or to infringe on plaintiff’s trademark.” Record, vol. 1, at 26. The trial court also found that plaintiff had suffered “no ascertainable damage or loss of profits from defendant’s use of the V.I.P. mark, but is likely to suffer damage in the form of loss of sales in the future if defendant continues to use that mark.” Id. at 21. Therefore, defendant was enjoined from using the V.I.P. trademark in the future. The court also determined that plaintiff was entitled to reasonable attorneys’ fees. The sole issue on appeal is whether the trial judge correctly awarded attorneys’ fees under either the Lanham Act or the Oklahoma Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Lanham Trade-Mark Act I.
Section 1117 of Title 15 of the United States Code states that, under the Lanham Act, “[t]he court in exceptional cases may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party.” (Emphasis added). The legislative history suggests that an “exceptional case” is one in which the trademark infringement can be characterized as “malicious,” “fraudulent,” “deliberate,” or “willful.” S.Rep.No.93-1400, 93rd Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in [1974] U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 7132, 7133.
The facts in this case as found by the district court do not indicate that this is an exceptional case. The evidence shows and the court also found that plaintiff had suffered no ascertainable damage or loss of profits because of defendant’s use of the V.I.P. mark. Furthermore, the court found that defendant had no intent to deceive or confuse the public or to willfully infringe upon plaintiff’s trademark. See Vuitton Et Fils, S. A. v. Crown Handbags, 492 F.Supp. 1071, 1078-79 (S.D.N.Y.1979), aff’d, 622 F.2d 577 (2d Cir. 1980). In our view, this is not a case that warrants an award of attorneys’ fees under 15 U.S.C. § 1117.
II. Oklahoma Deceptive Trade Practices Act
Section 4(b) of the Oklahoma Deceptive Trade Practices Act states:
In any action instituted under the provisions of this act, the court may, in its discretion, award reasonable attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party. If in any such action the court finds either (1) that the defendant has willfully engaged in a deceptive trade practice or (2) that the plaintiff has acted in bad faith in instituting the action, the court shall award reasonable attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party.
Okla.Stat.Ann. tit. 78, § 54(b). Unlike the provisions of the federal statute, this section permits a court, in its discretion, to award reasonable attorneys’ fees without regard to the degree of the defendant’s culpability. In this case, the trial court found that defendant had violated § 3(a)(1) of the Act by passing off its goods as those of the plaintiff. Defendant claims that the facts found by the district court do not support a violation of the Oklahoma statute. Specifically, defendant claims that none' of the acts constituting a deceptive trade practice occurred in Oklahoma. This claim has no merit because the pre-trial order lists as an admitted fact that defendant’s products “have been sold in ... the states of Oklahoma and Texas.” There is, however, a more fundamental problem with the application of the Oklahoma statute in this case.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court construed the Deceptive Practices Act in Bell v. Davidson, 597 P.2d 753 (Okl.1979), to require a showing that “[defendants [are] in competition with plaintiff” as a prerequisite to enjoining the use of a plaintiff’s trademark under the Act in a case involving non-distinctive trademarks. Id. at 755 and 756 (emphasis added). In the present case the district court specifically found that “the parties are not in competition, and there is no likelihood that they will be in the future.” Record, vol. 1, at 19. This finding was not challenged on appeal, and based on the record, is not clearly erroneous. The specific findings of the district court, therefore, do not support a claim under the Oklahoma Act as interpreted by the Supreme Court of that state. We conclude that the district court erred in finding that defendant had violated the Oklahoma Deceptive Practices Act, and that an award of attorneys’ fees under that act was improper.
The award of attorneys’ fees by the dis-' trict court is REVERSED.

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: 1