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Signatures are used for a wide variety of purposes that may have legal ramifications. There are two general classes of applications. The first is legislated or regulated applications. In this case, government legislation or regulations mandate some form of signature or equivalent as part of a transaction or process. The list of these types of documents is endless but a few examples contracts of all types, commercial documentation (invoices, purchase orders, waybills, etc.), forms of all kinds (insurance, mortgages, applications, etc.) and regulatory documents (FAA, FDA, OSHA, etc.)

The second class of documents requiring signatures is internal business documents. These are documents used to run a business or organization. Again there is a huge variety including timesheets, expense reports, manufacturing documents, letters of all kinds, human resources forms, requisitions and so on. Although there may be no legislation or regulations regarding these documents, there is still a need for persons to show their agreement or intent to bound to the information. Furthermore, there is every possibility that any internal business document will end up in court one day if there is a dispute that relates somehow to the content of the document.

Applying a signature or visible mark to a document captures a person's intent, consent, understanding or responsibility related to the document or data that has been signed. The act of signing becomes important for non-repudiation purposes. Just like a traditional pen and paper process, an electronic signature permanently binds a person's signature consent to the exact contents of a document using industry standard cryptographic algorithms. Once applied, deleting, or transferring it into another document or altering the document's contents render the electronic signature invalid.

Legislation gives electronic signatures the same legal status as handwritten signatures. As of March 31, 2000, 46 states within the US have passed over 100 pieces of legislation and 18 are pending at the Federal level. In January 2000, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill making electronic signatures legally binding for agreements that support eCommerce. The Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA) and the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) also accept electronic signatures. Canada and a number of European countries have also passed electronic signature laws as well.

Many business approvals involve complex signing processes where multiple people must sign a single document and add other information related to the signing process, like the date each signature was applied to the document, people's job titles and signing comments. Sometimes people are required to sign different sections of a document, as in an application form, where an applicant's signature is required in one area and authorized personnel in another. This becomes problematic for many other products on the market because electronic signatures, by definition, automatically detect when changes are made to a document since the original signing and invalidates the signing process. Emergence Docket, however, provides advanced management features that are capable of differentiating between the document's core contents and signing data added by each signatory.

Save time in the approvals process.

The US Joint Chiefs of Staff Have used this solution since 1997 to sign mission critical documents, including task orders from Congress.

Fort Belvoir Reduced approval cycles from weeks to hours and eliminated 9,000 hours per year of paper management, using this solution.

Signature Pharmaceuticals, Bristol Myers Squibb (Convatec), Johnston & Johnston, Wyeth-Ayerst and Barr Labs Cut overhead costs by 15% and doubled productivity.

Baseline Medical Reduced the time to approve independent medical examinations from 21 days to 9.4 days using electronic signatures.

Division of Siemens Building Technologies, Italy Used this solution to remain paperless, but still meet ISO 9001 requirements for controlled copies of QA and engineering documentation.

ABB (designer and manufacturer of electric power transmission equipment) Reduced approvals of CAD drawings from one week to 12 hours using this solution.

Corporations can also get 21CFR Part 11 Compliance using the Emergence Docket service.