US Patent 7685516 Creation of electronically processable signature files

The invention relates to aspects in connection with the automatic generation and processing of signature files. The signature files are generated in paper form on the basis of documents (28) that comprise a personal signature (34) and also control information items (30) assigned to the signature (34) and/or the documents (28). The documents in paper form (28) are scanned in within the scope of a batch processing operation in order to generate signature files that contain the personal signatures (34) in an electronically processable form and also representations of the respectively assigned control information items (30). The control information items (30) contained in a signature file are identified and interpreted document-wise. Then the signature files are automatically processed as a function of the content of the assigned control information items (30).