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ContactCreating an Electronic Signature Stamp
Adobe's Rick Borstein has a great how-to post on creating and using signature stamps in Adobe Acrobat on his blog and it's called "Creating a Transparent Signature Stamp."
An electronic signature stamp can be a very handy tool these days, and using a transparent background solves some frustrating problems that can arise when using a signature stamp.
The best thing is that people are gradually starting to realize the great flexibility that the electronic signature laws now give us (see this article for a primer on electronic signatures under U.S. law) and slowly people are starting to accept electronic signatures as being the equivalent of "wet" signatures, something U.S. law has provided for several years.
This method will also help you with some of the electronic filing issues Ernie Svenson raised here and here.
Rick's post will help you turn your signature into a work of art and practical and helpful tool at the same time. It's a great example of how small and simple uses of technology targeted at something that helps you everyday can bring you more benefit than elaborate technology "solutions" directed at problems that you aren't quite sure really even exist.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
Learn more about legal technology at Dennis Kennedy's Legal Technology Central page.
Technorati tags: legal technology electronic signatures acrobat technology law ueta
Comments
Images of your handwritten signature are easily copied electronically. There's no way to protect it from copying once it's displayed on someone's computer (simple image capture using imaging software) or when printed and then scanned back in.
Once you have the image, you can then paste it into as many different documents as you want -- for electronic look-alikes, or for then printing back onto paper documents.
You might do well to read:
http://www.yozons.com/pub/features/signatures3.jsp
Good luck!
Posted by: David | February 2, 2007 11:23 PM
Although many readers of this blog will be aware of these issues, David raise some good points that should be emphasized.
There is a big difference between digital signatures and doing a simple electronic signature, and digital signatures are so much better for the reasons you and the article you point to mention.
Also, there would be criminal laws against using someone else's scanned signature in the way you describe. Obviously, that does not stop everyone, as it hasn't stopped forgers for thousands of years, but there is that layer of protection.
In another article Chip Fendell and I wrote on UETA in 2001, we discussed differences between electronic signatures and digital signatures. http://bamsl.org/members/stlawyer/archive/01/July01/fendell.kennedy.html.
David's company, Yozons, looks like one to consider if you are exploring more advanced electronic signature approaches.
Posted by: Dennis | February 3, 2007 11:28 AM