An Automatic Electronic Contract Document Signing System in a Secure Environment

Superimposing electronic signing data on a signed electronic contract usually involves a large number of complex manual steps. These manual steps are tedious and may cause security faults. In this paper, we present an automatic electronic contract document signing system in a secure environment. The system comprises a document and signature profile module, a signing text template module and a signing information superimposed module. The document and signature profile module parses the contract document and signature information. Based on this information, the signing text template module creates a signing text template with empty text fields. The signing information superimposed module carry out a novel electronic document signing method. This novel method consists of four processing steps: inserting signing text data into empty text fields, converting the text template into an image template, adding signing image data onto the image template, and superimposing the signing image template on the contract document to produce a signed electronic contract document. This automation system has found to improve substantially the efficiency, and at the same time eliminate the potential for human errors and security breaches in signing electronic contract documents.

By: Thomas Kwok; Thao Nguyen

Published in: RC23535 in 2005

LIMITED DISTRIBUTION NOTICE:

This Research Report is available. This report has been submitted for publication outside of IBM and will probably be copyrighted if accepted for publication. It has been issued as a Research Report for early dissemination of its contents. In view of the transfer of copyright to the outside publisher, its distribution outside of IBM prior to publication should be limited to peer communications and specific requests. After outside publication, requests should be filled only by reprints or legally obtained copies of the article (e.g., payment of royalties). I have read and understand this notice and am a member of the scientific community outside or inside of IBM seeking a single copy only.

RC23535.pdf

Questions about this service can be mailed to reports@us.ibm.com .