Capsugel Belgium NV v. INNERCAP Technologies, Inc.

I'll research this case across multiple sources. Let me start with the case number and parties.

Let me dig into the parallel district court litigation and the IPR outcome.

Let me find the parallel district court case and the specific IPR outcome records.

Case Overview: Capsugel Belgium NV v. InnerCap Technologies, Inc., IPR2013-00331

Important framing note: Despite the "patent infringement litigation" label, case number IPR2013-00331 is not a district-court infringement suit — it is an inter partes review (IPR) petition filed at the USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board on June 6, 2013. The petitioner (styled "plaintiff" in the metadata) is Capsugel Belgium NV, and the patent owner (styled "defendant") is InnerCap Technologies, Inc. Petitions in the first wave of the AIA's IPR regime were typically filed defensively, in parallel with or in response to a district-court assertion, so the IPR almost certainly had an underlying litigation component — but I could not verify a specific parallel district-court docket (party name, court, case number) from the sources available, so I flag that as unsourced rather than guess.

The parties and the technology. Capsugel Belgium NV is the Belgian operating subsidiary of Capsugel, one of the world's largest manufacturers of hard and soft capsule shells and encapsulation/drug-delivery systems (its CFS 1200 liquid-encapsulation platform with LEMS sealing is referenced in industry press), headquartered in Bornem, Belgium. Capsugel was a Pfizer division spun out to KKR in 2011 and later acquired by Lonza; at the time of this IPR it was an independent capsule-technology company. InnerCap Technologies, Inc. is a small, patent-holding company founded around inventor Frederic H. Miller and his "multi-phase, multi-compartment capsular system" work (priority date April 9, 2002). InnerCap is not a traditional operating manufacturer; it monetizes a capsule-in-capsule patent portfolio, and by 2026 it appears as an active plaintiff asserting these patents against supplement sellers — e.g., InnerCap Technologies, Inc. v. Nouri Life, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00903 (D. Del., Judge Jennifer L. Hall), InnerCap Tech Inc. v. [Walmart Inc.](/litigations/by-defendant/Walmart%20Inc.), No. 1:26-cv-00488 (D. Del.), and a declaratory-judgment action by Natals, Inc. d/b/a Ritual (Natals, Inc. v. InnerCap Technologies, 2:26-cv-05696, C.D. Cal.), which was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice. That 2026 plaintiff-side posture — asserting against "Ritual Essentials Prenatal Multivitamins," "Daily Nouri Digestive Support Probiotic," and similar nested-capsule supplements — is the closest analogue to an "accused product" I can source; Walmart's accused products allegedly place an oil (omega-3 DHA, ahiflower oil) in the outer chamber and a solid/probiotic in the inner chamber.

The patents at issue. The IPR challenged U.S. Patent No. 8,361,497, titled "Multi-Phase, Multi-Compartment, Capsular Delivery Apparatus and Methods for Using the Same" — a multi-compartment capsule with a first receiving chamber and a second receiving chamber holding ingredients in different physical states (e.g., solid vs. liquid), each selected from nutraceuticals, vitamins, dietary supplements, and minerals. The closely related U.S. Patent No. 7,670,612 shares the same title and specification (InnerCap's earliest issued U.S. patent in the family); in the 2026 complaints, independent claim 33 of the '612 is asserted and describes a hard-shell capsule with an immediate-release oil in the first chamber and a time-delayed solid (e.g., probiotic) in the second chamber enveloped by the first — i.e., a "capsule-in-a-capsule" design. So the family covers nested-capsule combination dosing generally.

Procedural posture and why it matters. Proceeding IPR2013-00331 was filed June 6, 2013 — within the first months of IPR availability (Sept. 16, 2012) — and the Board instituted review by Decision to Institute, Paper 9 (Dec. 9, 2013) (per the Oblon TC-1600 2013 IPR chart and citing decisions; the panel included APJs Rama G. Elluru and Lora M. Green per Patexia judge profiles). The proceeding terminated with "claims disclaimed" (Oblon chart), consistent with a statutory disclaimer by the patent owner leading to an adverse judgment under 37 C.F.R. § 42.73(b). The case is notable for three reasons: (1) it is an early AIA IPR, part of the June 2013 inaugural wave; (2) Paper 9 carries precedential weight on the scope of IPR prior art — the Board rejected an obviousness challenge premised on a "pharmaceutical product," holding a product is not a "patent or printed publication" under 35 U.S.C. § 311(b) (Capsugel Belgium NV v. Innercap Techs., Inc., IPR2013-00331, Paper 9, 2013 WL 8595288, at *8–9 (PTAB Dec. 9, 2013)), and that holding is still cited in later petitions (e.g., Apple v. MemoryWeb, IPR2022-00111) and PTAB briefing; and (3) it sits at the center of a long-running Capsugel–InnerCap rivalry over multi-compartment capsule dosing, a market that became commercially significant with the rise of nested-capsule combination supplements (Ritual, Nouri, and similar products) that InnerCap now litigates over.

Sourcing caveats. Grounded: the filing date, petitioner/patent-owner identities, patent number and title, institution, disclaimer/"claims disclaimed" outcome, and the Paper 9 § 311(b) holding are corroborated by the Oblon 2013 IPR chart, the Harness IP AIA tracker, and PTAB petitions citing Paper 9. Not well sourced and therefore flagged rather than asserted: the exact date/paper of the termination and adverse judgment, the full APJ panel, the identity/number/court of any parallel district-court case underlying the IPR, and the specifics of the accused product in the original 2013 dispute (the product details above come from 2026 filings). I'd recommend pulling the IPR2013-00331 docket directly from PTAB-CTS/P-TACTS and PACER for the parallel case to confirm those points.

I'll research the parallel litigation and procedural history. Let me start with several searches.

Threshold framing (important — and a correction to the task premise)

The task asks for the "patent infringement litigation" chronology — complaint, answer, Markman, trial, verdict. There is no such record in this case. As flagged in the prior section, IPR2013-00331 is a PTAB inter partes review, not a district-court suit. I searched specifically for a parallel infringement action between InnerCap and Capsugel (party-name, court, docket-number queries, plus the '497/'612 family) and could not locate a confirmed district-court docket. So below I:

1. Give the actual chronological record of IPR2013-00331, mapping the IPR's papers onto the litigation milestones you asked for; and
2. Explicitly flag every milestone for which no record exists rather than inventing one.

I also hit a tool/step ceiling mid-research, so several items below are marked as unverified and should be confirmed against PTAB-CTS/P-TACTS (and PACER if a parallel case surfaces).

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Chronology of the proceeding

2013-01-29 — The patent issues (pre-filing context). U.S. Patent No. 8,361,497, "Multi-phase, multi-compartment, capsular delivery apparatus and methods for using the same," issued to inventor Fred H. Miller, assigned to InnerCap Technologies, Inc. (Tampa, FL); application 12/689,669. InnerCap publicly announced the grant, describing it as covering its multi-phase/multi-compartment ("NOVACAP") delivery system, and stated it was represented by Cliff Davidson, Esq., Davidson, Davidson & Kappel, LLC (NYC). (uspto.report/patent/grant/8361497; drug-dev.com announcement) The '497 sits in the same family as the earlier U.S. 7,670,612 (issued 2010-03-02), which shares the title and specification.

2013-06-06 — "Filing of the complaint" analogue: the IPR petition. Capsugel Belgium NV filed IPR2013-00331 challenging the '497 patent — among the earliest IPR petitions filed after the AIA's Sept. 16, 2012 IPR start date. Confirmed by the Harness IP AIA tracker ("On June 6, 2013, Capsugel Belgium NV filed IPR2013-00331 on U.S. Patent No. 8361497"). (aia.harnessip.com/?p=372) The petition is not available in the search results I could retrieve, so the asserted grounds, the real parties in interest, and Capsugel's lead counsel are unverified.

2013 — Patent Owner Preliminary Response / "answer" analogue. By rule the patent owner's preliminary response (37 C.F.R. § 42.107) would have preceded institution. No specific paper or filing date located — unverified.

2013-12-09 — "Institution decision": Decision to Institute, Paper 9. The Board instituted review. This is the single most legally significant paper in the case, because it carries a § 311(b) holding: the Board rejected an obviousness challenge premised on a "pharmaceutical product," holding that a product is not a "patent or printed publication" within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 311(b). See Capsugel Belgium NV v. Innercap Techs., Inc., IPR2013-00331, Paper 9, 2013 WL 8595288, at *8–9 (PTAB Dec. 9, 2013). That holding is still cited in later petitions and responses (e.g., Apple v. MemoryWeb, IPR2022-00111, Patent Owner Preliminary Response; and in a recently filed PTAB petition citing the WL cite for the same proposition). (docketalarm MemoryWeb POR; PTAB-CTS petition excerpt citing Capsugel, Paper 9, 2013 WL 8595288, at *8–9)

• Panel: Patexia judge profiles list APJs Rama G. Elluru and Lora M. Green on IPR2013-00331 (both profiles show "Jun 6, 2013 | IPR2013-00331 | Capsugel Belgium NV v. INNERCAP Technologies, Inc."). (Patexia – Elluru; Patexia – Green) Whether the panel was three judges (and the third member) is unverified.

2014 — "Discovery / merits" phase analogues. In an IPR this is the Patent Owner Response, Petitioner's Reply, motion practice, and oral hearing. I found no specific papers, dates, or exhibits. Treat all of this as no record located.

Termination — "claims disclaimed" → adverse judgment (date unverified). The proceeding did not end in a Final Written Decision on the merits. The Oblon TC-1600 2013 IPR chart records the outcome as "claims disclaimed." Under 37 C.F.R. § 42.73(b)(2), "cancellation or disclaimer of a claim such that the party has no remaining claim in the trial" is an action construed as a request for adverse judgment, and § 42.73(b)(1) treats disclaimer of the involved patent the same way. That is the source of the "adverse judgment" flag on the case: InnerCap disclaimed the challenged claim(s) rather than fight to a decision, and the Board entered adverse judgment. The exact disclaimer date, the paper number of the judgment, and whether the disclaimer covered all claims or only the challenged claims are unverified — this is the single most important gap to close.

No appeal to the Federal Circuit. I found no CAFC appeal of IPR2013-00331. Consistent with the adverse-judgment/disclaimer termination, there would have been nothing for InnerCap to appeal (a disclaiming patent owner is not a party aggrieved by an adverse judgment it requested). Flagged as absence of evidence, not affirmative verification.

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Mapping your requested milestones to this case

I'll research the counsel of record for the petitioner/plaintiff in IPR2013-00331.

Let me find the actual IPR docket and the petition filing, plus any parallel district court case.

Counsel of Record — IPR2013-00331 (Petitioner: Capsugel Belgium NV)

Bottom line: I could not verify the identity of any attorney of record for the petitioner from the sources available to me. I am not able to name lead counsel, back-up counsel, or a firm for Capsugel Belgium NV in IPR2013-00331 without fabricating it, and I will not do that. Below is what I did verify, what I checked, why it failed, and an exact retrieval path that will resolve the question from primary sources.

What I checked, and why each came up empty

Do not treat any of the following as established: any firm name, attorney name, or role for Capsugel in this IPR. The results produced by the searches above belong to unrelated PTAB matters (the Symantec motion-to-exclude footnote, signed by Joseph J. Richetti of Bryan Cave, and the Finnegan/TM correspondence from the Warner-Lambert–Capsugel trademark assignment, were both surfaced only as keyword noise on "Capsugel" / "Attorney for Petitioner" and have no connection to IPR2013-00331).

Why the earlier sections' framing matters here

The task is phrased as finding "counsel for the plaintiff(s) in this patent infringement case." As the case-overview section already establishes, IPR2013-00331 is not an infringement suit — it is an IPR petition. The "plaintiff" is therefore the petitioner, Capsugel Belgium NV. Under 37 C.F.R. § 42.8(a)(1), the petitioner's mandatory notices must identify lead counsel and back-up counsel and provide service information; the petition itself (Paper 1) is filed "on behalf of" the petitioner and signed by counsel, and a Power of Attorney is typically filed as an exhibit. Those are the documents that answer this question definitively — and they are not indexed in the general web results I could reach.

Exact retrieval path to get the names (primary sources)

1. PTAB-CTS / P-TACTS case page for IPR2013-00331 (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) → open the document list → pull:
   • Paper 1 (Petition, filed 2013-06-06) — cover page/signature block identifies petitioner's counsel;
   • the Power of Attorney accompanying the petition;
   • the Mandatory Notices (37 C.F.R. § 42.8) — lists Lead Counsel and Back-up Counsel with addresses and service email;
   • Paper 9 (Decision to Institute, Dec. 9, 2013) — caption page lists counsel of record for both sides;
   • the termination paper (adverse judgment / request for adverse judgment per 37 C.F.R. § 42.73(b)) — signed by the party's counsel.
2. Docket Alarm / Unified Patents PTAB portal / Patexia PTAB case page for IPR2013-00331 — often mirrors the petition PDF and the § 42.8 notices.
3. For the patent-owner (defendant) side (InnerCap Technologies) — same documents, served copies of which appear as exhibits in the parallel 2013 litigation. InnerCap's modern plaintiff-side counsel in the 2026 D. Del. cases (InnerCap Tech Inc. v. Walmart Inc., 1:26-cv-00488; InnerCap Tech., Inc. v. Nouri Life, Inc., 1:26-cv-00903) is a separate question and also needs PACER confirmation.

Related-but-distinct data points I can source (flagged as not the answer)

• Peter E. Heuser (Reg. No. 27,902) — Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, P.C., Portland, OR — represented Bright Pharma Caps, Inc. (petitioner) in IPR2015-01625 against Capsugel Belgium NV/Capsugel US, LLC; not Capsugel's counsel and not this case.
• Scott E. Davis and Joseph T. Jakubek (Klarquist Sparkman LLP, Portland, OR) — patent-owner counsel of record for U.S. Pat. 6,887,307 in that same IPR; again unrelated to IPR2013-00331.

If you can supply the IPR2013-00331 petition PDF, the § 42.8 mandatory notices, or the Paper 9 caption page, I can extract the full lead/back-up counsel list with firm addresses and roles and complete this section precisely. Until then, the honest answer is: counsel of record for the petitioner is unverified — no attorney names should be reported.

I'll research counsel of record for the patent owner (InnerCap Technologies) in IPR2013-00331, starting with the PTAB filings and any documented representation.

I have the core facts on the technology. Now let me find the actual counsel of record — for the patent owner (InnerCap, the "defendant" here) and petitioner Capsugel — by searching PTAB filings and dockets.

Counsel of Record — Defendant (Patent Owner) InnerCap Technologies, Inc.

Threshold problem with the premise

This case, IPR2013-00331, is an inter partes review at the PTAB, not a district-court infringement suit. There is therefore no "defendant" in the Fed. R. Civ. P. sense — the party aligned as "defendant" in the case metadata is the patent owner, InnerCap Technologies, Inc. (the real party in interest opposing Capsugel's petition). Counsel in an IPR appear as "Counsel for Patent Owner." I could not retrieve the actual IPR2013-00331 attorney-of-record list from the sources available (P-TACTS/PTAB-CTS paper images and the Docket Alarm docket for this proceeding did not surface in search results, and I was cut off before I could pull the docket directly). Below I give (a) what I can source on InnerCap's representation, and (b) an explicit statement of what I could not confirm — I am not inventing IPR counsel.

What I could establish

1. Patent prosecution counsel for the '497 patent (and the related '612) — Claude "Cliff" Davidson, Davidson, Davidson & Kappel, LLC.

• Name/role: Cliff Davidson, Esq. — patent prosecution counsel (not necessarily IPR counsel).
• Firm/location: Davidson, Davidson & Kappel, LLC, New York, NY.
• Source: InnerCap's own grant announcement for U.S. Pat. No. 8,361,497: "INNERCAP was represented by Cliff Davidson, Esq. of the patent firm Davidson, Davidson & Kappel, LLC based in New York City." (drug-dev.com, "INNERCAP Granted Patent for Multi-Phase, Multi-Compartment Capsular Delivery Apparatus").
• Caveat: This is the patent-prosecution firm that obtained the patent. It is likely but unverified that the same firm handled the IPR defense for the patent owner, since a small patent-holding company like InnerCap typically uses its prosecution firm for PTAB work. I could not confirm it from an IPR filing.

2. InnerCap's current (2026) patent-litigation team — not the IPR team, but the same client.
These are sourced from the 2026 docket sheet in InnerCap Technologies, Inc. v. Nouri Life, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00903 (D. Del., Judge Jennifer L. Hall), and InnerCap Tech. Inc. v. Walmart Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00488 (D. Del.), where InnerCap is plaintiff, not defendant. They are relevant only as the current custodians of InnerCap's patent enforcement:

• Brian E. Farnan — local counsel, Farnan LLP (Wilmington, Del.); Delaware counsel of record filing all papers (D.I. 17–21, No. 1:26-cv-00903).
• Michael J. Farnan — local counsel, Farnan LLP (Wilmington, Del.); Delaware counsel.
• Aden M. Allen — lead trial counsel (pro hac vice); appearance granted 5/14/2026 in 1:26-cv-00488 and 8/28/2026 in 1:26-cv-00903.
• Cristofer I. Leffler — of counsel (pro hac vice); granted 8/28/2026 (1:26-cv-00903).
• Michael C. Saunders, II — of counsel (pro hac vice); granted 5/4–5/5/2026 (1:26-cv-00488) and 8/28/2026 (1:26-cv-00903).
• Katherine Bentfield — of counsel (pro hac vice); granted 5/5/2026 (1:26-cv-00488) and 8/28/2026 (1:26-cv-00903).
• Palani P. Rathinasamy — of counsel (pro hac vice); granted 8/28/2026 (1:26-cv-00903); filed the supporting declaration in InnerCap's request for entry of default.
• Note: The PTAB/2026 filings in the search results did not state which firm these non-Delaware attorneys belong to, so I flag their firm affiliation as unsourced. Delaware counsel is Farnan LLP in all InnerCap 2026 matters. InnerCap also filed a declaratory-judgment matter as the defendant: Natals, Inc. d/b/a Ritual v. InnerCap Technologies, No. 2:26-cv-05696 (C.D. Cal., filed 2026), where plaintiff Ritual was represented by Melissa N. Eubanks (VGC LLP) — InnerCap's counsel there did not appear in the retrieved docket.

What I could NOT confirm (and will not fabricate)

• The IPR2013-00331 attorney(s) of record. I found no filing, order, or docket entry naming the attorney who signed InnerCap's Patent Owner papers in IPR2013-00331. The proceeding terminated on a statutory disclaimer/adverse judgment, so briefing may have been minimal (possibly only a preliminary response or a disclaimer), which would explain sparse attorney appearances.
• Petitioner Capsugel Belgium NV's counsel of record — likewise not retrieved.
• The full APJ panel — only APJs Rama G. Elluru and Lora M. Green are reported (Patexia judge profiles, both listing IPR2013-00331 on 6/6/2013).
• The fee/termination papers (Paper number and date) confirming the adverse judgment.

Recommendation to close the gap

Pull the IPR2013-00331 docket and paper images directly from PTAB-CTS/P-TACTS (the mandatory notices under 37 C.F.R. § 42.8 for the patent owner, and the power-of-attorney/counsel signature blocks on the Preliminary Response and any disclaimer papers). Those filings will name the actual "Counsel for Patent Owner." Because the proceeding ended in a disclaimer-based adverse judgment, the statutory disclaimer itself (37 C.F.R. § 1.321) will be signed by a § 1.33(b) attorney of record — likely someone at the prosecution firm (Davidson, Davidson & Kappel) — and that signature block is the most reliable place to confirm IPR counsel.

Bottom line: The one attorney I can source as representing InnerCap in a patent matter is Cliff Davidson (Davidson, Davidson & Kappel, NYC), as prosecution counsel — but I cannot confirm he or his firm were the IPR2013-00331 counsel of record, and I found no verifiable "defense counsel of record" for the IPR itself. Any specific naming of IPR counsel beyond this would be speculation, so I am flagging it rather than asserting it.