CPi keeps your docket and renewals. PracticeLink reads from it and runs the work outside CPi: mail, documents, forms, client reporting. No migration.
Your CPi system has been doing its job for years, and doing it well.
The dates are tracked. The annuities and renewals get paid on time. The docket holds the prosecution history, the party data, the deadlines that can't slip. CPi is one of the most established names in IP management for a reason. Firms that run it tend to trust it.
The question was never whether CPi holds the data. It's who can see it, when, and in what form.
A partner asks where a client's portfolio stands before a call. The ops director wants to know which matters are running hot this week. A client wants to log in and see current status without emailing anyone. Each of those questions sends someone into CPi, then into a report, then into Excel, then into a Word doc. By the time the answer lands, the call's over.
CPi was built to run the docket and the renewals. PracticeLink was built for the work around it: the mail, the documents, the handoffs, and the client's answer. PracticeLink connects through CPi's own API.
What Is CPi?
CPi is the IP management system from Computer Packages Inc., a privately held company that's been serving the IP industry since 1968. They still develop everything in-house and have refined it over more than fifty years. Alongside the docketing system, CPi is widely known for annuity and renewal payment services, backed by verified patent office data from around the world.
If you're comparing CPi with other options rather than adding to it, Quartz IP vs. CPI covers what each one does. If your firm already runs CPi, you know what makes it dependable. The dates are right. The renewals get paid. The docket reflects how your firm actually files, tuned over years. That reliability is the asset.
The friction isn't inside CPi. It's everything your firm runs outside it. The shared inbox where the PTO mail lands. The DMS where the documents live. The billing system, the drafting tools, the client's inbox. Each of those is a handoff somebody makes by hand.
For a broader look at what "IP operations" covers beyond docketing, see What Is IP Operations?
What Stays in CPi When You Add PracticeLink?
Adding PracticeLink doesn't ask you to migrate, reconfigure, or unwind anything you've built in CPi. The point is to leave the system of record alone.
Prosecution deadlines and statutory dates. CPi remains the docket. PracticeLink reads from it and doesn't write anything back to CPi.
Annuities and renewals. CPi keeps managing renewal deadlines and payments the way it does today. PracticeLink doesn't touch that. Renewals stay where they already run well.
Configurations. Years of tuning don't get thrown away. PracticeLink doesn't ask you to change how CPi is set up.
Matter, client, and inventor records. CPi holds the master records. PracticeLink reads them, doesn't replace them.
Historical data. Every matter and every event stays where it is. PracticeLink keeps its copy current with full and incremental syncs. It isn't real-time, and nobody exports or re-keys CPi data to feed it.
Your CPi administrator doesn't have a migration project. Your docketing team doesn't learn a new system. That part is the whole point.
Here's the whole split on one screen.
| The work | Where the record lives | What PracticeLink adds |
|---|
| Statutory dates and actions due | CPi | Reads them. Ties tasks and soft dates to them. Never writes back. |
| Annuities and renewals | CPi | Nothing. That work stays in CPi. |
| Matter, client and inventor records | CPi | Uses them to link mail, documents and tasks to the right matter |
| Incoming mail from the shared inbox | The shared inbox | Captures, classifies, links to the CPi matter and routes it. Low-confidence items go to a person. |
| Filed documents | Your DMS | Profiles each one to the right matter using CPi data |
| USPTO forms and IDS | PracticeLink | Prefills them from CPi matter data |
| Work that spans systems | Spread across CPi, the DMS and email | One view of who has what |
| Client status and reporting | PracticeLink | Branded portals and tri-folds fed by CPi data |
What Does PracticeLink Add to CPi?
PracticeLink connects to CPi through its API and builds on that data. Most of what it adds shows up as one thing: views and handoffs that combine your CPi data with the rest of the firm's work.
Dashboards that don't require IT. Firm-wide views of matter status, workload, deadline density, response cycles, and bottlenecks. The data is coming from CPi. The configuration is happening in PracticeLink. Ops directors stop filing report requests and start seeing the practice for themselves.
Cross-matter and cross-client visibility. Roll up by client, by attorney, by technology, by jurisdiction. The rest of the firm reads the same CPi data your docketing team trusts.
Office action workflow. This is the one people ask about most. PracticeLink syncs with CPi docketing to manage the full office action response cycle. The office action comes in, gets classified against the right CPi matter, gets routed to the right attorney. The response workflow kicks off with built-in checkpoints, task assignments, and deadline tracking tied to the docket dates already in CPi. The attorney works the substance. PracticeLink handles the logistics.
One source for the whole firm. Instead of each team keeping its own export or spreadsheet pulled from CPi, everyone works from one connected set of your CPi data inside PracticeLink.
Client portals fed by your CPi data. Branded client portals and electronic tri-folds pull from your CPi data. One configuration per client. After that, the portal updates without anyone rebuilding it by hand. Client reporting runs 30% faster across firms using PracticeLink for this, and reporting satisfaction sits at 98%.
Practice data, surfaced for partners. A partner asks where a portfolio stands before a panel review. A lateral candidate asks what the firm runs and whether they can see their book on day one. Each of those questions used to require a project. Now it requires a link.
Document intake linked to your CPi matters. Incoming mail captured from the shared inbox, classified, linked to the right CPi matter, routed to the right person, and profiled to your DMS. Anything the classifier isn't sure about goes to a person to confirm. Firms running this see mail processing speed improve by 50%.
Forms and citations using CPi data. USPTO filing packages, IDS citations with cross-family references, forms with smart prefill from CPi party and matter data. Forms preparation runs 45% faster.
Soft-docket alongside the statutory docket. Attorneys set their own preparation dates and reminders in PracticeLink without touching the official CPi docket. Personal tasks, not date-field changes.
What Does a Day Look Like With Both Systems?
A docketing specialist at a firm running both systems might start their morning like this:
8:30 AM. Overnight mail has already been processed. PracticeLink captured 47 incoming documents from the shared mailbox, classified each one, linked them to the right matters in CPi, and routed them to the attorneys and paralegals who need to act on them. Three office actions, two notices of allowance, a restriction requirement, and a stack of foreign correspondence. Two it wasn't sure about are waiting in the review queue for her to confirm. The ops director opens a single dashboard and sees the day shape up before standup.
10:00 AM. A senior paralegal pulls up the matters for one of the firm's anchor clients. She needs to confirm IDS status across a patent family before the team reviews a new prior-art search. In the old workflow she'd open CPi, run a saved search, export to Excel, cross-check against the citation tracker she maintains, and reconcile. Now the view is already there. Family members, references already cited, references pending, attorney of record. She adds two new references from yesterday's search, previews the package, and sends it through the review workflow. The attorney approves it by 11. Nobody opened a spreadsheet.
11:30 AM. A partner emails the client team. He needs a snapshot of a client's active prosecution work before a 2 PM call. The client team sends a portal link. The portal is current as of the last sync, fed from CPi data, formatted to the client's preferences. He reads it on the elevator.
None of this required a change to CPi. The dates are where they've always been. The renewals are still CPi's job. The configurations are intact. CPi still runs the docket. PracticeLink runs the operations around it.
How Does PracticeLink Connect to CPi?
For teams evaluating how the systems connect:
Connection method. PracticeLink connects to CPi's REST API and authenticates with OAuth. It runs full and incremental syncs for patents, trademarks, clients, inventors, patent and trademark actions due, trademark images, and general matters.
Hosting and security. PracticeLink is cloud-hosted on Microsoft Azure. SSO, role-based access controls, encryption, and audit trails are built in. Our written security best-practices documentation and recent penetration testing reports are available on request before any pilot conversation.
Data flow. PracticeLink reads from CPi: matters, dates and actions due, clients, and inventors. The flow runs one direction. PracticeLink doesn't write back to CPi. Your system of record stays the system of record.
What PracticeLink adds on top. Dashboards and operational reporting, client portals and branded reports, document intake and classification, forms and citations (IDS, USPTO filing packages), soft-docket management, workflow automation, and the Planner for color-coded date visibility.
DMS integration. PracticeLink also connects to netDocuments and iManage. Documents profiled to the right matter with metadata derived from CPi.
Setup and IT lift. Your CPi administrator is consulted, not displaced. No changes to your existing CPi configuration, no migration, and no new on-prem infrastructure.
What About CPI's Own Workflow Tools?
CPI has been adding its own. Task Manager, announced in April 2026, reads incoming patent office correspondence, creates tasks against the matter, and tracks them inside CPI. If you run it, keep running it.
The difference is where the work stops. CPI describes Task Manager as connecting to its own systems: patent management, IDS, annuities, and CPI's document management and mailbox. It doesn't name connectors to the DMS, billing, or drafting tools a firm runs elsewhere. Most firms also run a DMS, a billing system, drafting tools, email, and a way of answering clients, and the handoffs between those are where matters stall.
PracticeLink runs on top of CPi, reads from it without writing back, and coordinates the work that lives outside CPi: the mail, the documents, the forms, and the answer that goes to the client.
For a side-by-side of what each one does, see Quartz IP vs. CPI.
What If You're Already Running CPi?
You've done the hard part. The data is captured, the dates are tracked, the renewals are paid, the configurations reflect years of decisions about how your firm files. The remaining question is whether anyone outside the docketing team can actually see what's in there, and whether the work around the docket moves as well as the docket itself.
If partners wait days for a status answer, that's rarely a CPi problem. The answer usually lives in three systems, and only one of them is CPi. CPi runs the docket, the renewals, and more of the work inside its own modules every year. The gap is between CPi and everything else your firm runs. That's what PracticeLink fills.
Five of the top 10 US patent filing firms run PracticeLink alongside their docketing systems. Our longest-tenured clients have been with us through multiple platform generations and several of their own leadership changes. The pattern repeats: keep the system of record you've spent years tuning, and make its data usable across the firm.
A few things worth saying clearly. PracticeLink was built by people who ran IP operations before they built software. Our team carries more than 150 combined years inside IP practices. We don't touch your statutory dates, and we don't take ownership of work that has to live inside your firm. Your audit trail is your audit trail.
Common Questions
Does PracticeLink replace CPi?
No. PracticeLink sits on top of CPi. Your docketing team keeps working in CPi exactly as they do today, and CPi keeps managing your annuities and renewals. PracticeLink reads from CPi and surfaces the data through dashboards, client portals, and reporting that combine CPi data with the rest of the practice.
How does PracticeLink connect to CPi?
Through CPi's REST API, authenticated with OAuth. PracticeLink syncs matters, dates and actions due, clients, and inventors. It isn't real-time. It doesn't write back to CPi, so CPi stays your system of record.
Does PracticeLink change anything in our CPi configuration?
No. PracticeLink reads from CPi and doesn't write anything back. Your CPi administrator is involved in the connection setup but doesn't need to reconfigure anything to support PracticeLink.
What about our annuities and renewals?
Those stay in CPi. PracticeLink doesn't manage renewal payments and doesn't try to. That work stays where it already runs well.
Are there office action tools that sync with CPi docketing?
Yes. PracticeLink manages the full office action response workflow tied to docket dates in CPi. When an office action arrives, PracticeLink classifies it, routes it to the right attorney, and kicks off the response workflow with task assignments and deadline tracking. The statutory dates stay in CPi. PracticeLink handles the work between receiving the action and filing the response.
Do partners and clients need CPi logins to see anything?
No. That's the point. Partners see firm-level views through PracticeLink dashboards. Clients see their own portfolio through a branded client portal. Neither needs a CPi seat or training.
What does the integration cost?
The CPi integration is included with PracticeLink. There's no separate licensing fee for the connection. Pricing depends on your firm's size and configuration. Talk to our team for specifics.
Can PracticeLink work with other docketing systems too?
Yes. PracticeLink integrates with CPi, FoundationIP, Inprotech, Patricia, and others. The pattern is the same regardless of the underlying system. The docketing system holds the data. PracticeLink makes it visible and operational. See also: How PracticeLink Connects Your Existing IP Tools.
Ready to See It?
The first conversation isn't a pitch deck. It's a working session with an IP operations advisor from our team. We walk through how your firm uses CPi, where the work leaves it, and what the integration looks like against your actual matters. By the end you'll know what would be visible, what would be automated, and what a pilot would cover. Schedule a conversation with our team.
Related: How to Keep Up With Incoming USPTO Patent Correspondence.
Related: CPi vs. FoundationIP: Two Systems That Both Keep the Dates.