E-Signature Upgrade Applies Most Evidential Weight Available to Contracts

Award-winning RPost releases comprehensive electronic signature service upgrade with court-admissible document, contract, and multi-party signoff tools that plug into Salesforce.com, Outlook, Lotus, web-mail and other applications

LOS ANGELES, CA — Aug 16, 2011 — RPost, the inventor of Registered Email® services, today released a comprehensive electronic signature service upgrade that builds upon RPost’s secure messaging platform, which has been awarded the legal industry’s top pick in the JMBM Corporate Counsel Guide for Converting Legal and Contract Notices to Electronic Delivery, as well as been the recipient of the World Mail Award for Best in Security. With e-signature customers from Cox Communications use for sales contract signoff to insurance carrier claims correspondence signatures, RPost has set the global standard for e-signatures and Legal Proof® in other electronic communications for nearly a decade.

This latest RPost electronic signature upgrade delivers all the elements necessary for upholding legal contracts in today’s automated technology environments with three crucial, specific elements:

1. 1. Auditable Proof of Signoff:  Only RPost technology provides a record of precisely what message content was in fact sent, received, and signed off with a robust audit trail that is cryptographically associated with the signoff record content and timestamps.  This is important because most disputes around who agreed to what and when happen years after agreements were struck. Along with document signature records, RPost provides a Registered Receipt that encapsulates the signoff record with Internet forensic evidence associated with the signoff event in a form that can be later authenticated to withstand any challenge related to content, signing event, time, or validity for court admission.   
   2. User Simplicity: RPost is simple to use, with the sender often signing documents or sending contracts for signature right from their existing email program, or automated from any email sending or web application. This is critical because if signing, sending for signature or the process of obtaining recipient signoff or consent is just slightly too complicated or inconvenient, users tend to quickly revert back to traditional and administratively inefficient paper-and-ink or fax-and-scanning processes. RPost’s upgrade ensures the simplest user experience for both sender and recipient.
   3. Enterprise Security Intelligence: Most enterprises employing electronic signature services with automation or in high volume from many senders or with many signors prefer to have robust reporting and analytics that provide a centralized dashboard display showing sending, delivery, reading, signoff events and overall process cycle times. RPost provides real-time reporting as a standalone display or formatted to parse into sender management systems.

“Electronically signing a document is not difficult,” says Zafar Khan, CEO of RPost. “Just typing your name at the bottom of a document or email can have all the legal force of a handwritten signature if all parties have proof that you are the author of the specific content. But if you don’t have that proof, then electronic signing is legally worthless. The key element in any system of electronic signature is creating a legally meaningful audit trial of every step of the signature process and mathematically associating that audit trail with particular electronic document content and uniform time of signoff. This is where RPost excels – having patented the technology to provide legally valid and irrefutable evidence of signoff giving our clients the upper hand in any dispute about who signed what and when. We pioneered the technology and have shown the industry our commitment to continuously innovate and enhance it.”

The RPost electronic signature service upgrade runs on RPost’s Registered Email service technology platform and is unique in that it permits senders to send for signature and have electronic signing capabilities anywhere – from their mobile device, browser-based email and CRM services like Salesforce.com, and desktop email software – without requiring the sender or recipient to work outside of their favorite personal or corporate email accounts. In addition, there are four user modes that can be enabled, designated by sender, user group or organization once they use RPost’s electronic signature service:

1. 1. Hand-Sign: Obtain recipient handwritten, mouse scripted signature electronically applied to any sent document or message body text. The simplicity of using this biometric signature service is unmatched in the industry as this can be used (1) with any document attached to any email sent right from the sender’s email program, (2) there is no need for any document uploading, document set-up, or recipient digital certificates or software, and (3) the sender can opt to conduct the transaction in a secure signoff process that returns an encrypted record in a HIPAA data privacy compliant manner.
   2. Quick-Sign: Records the recipient’s consent to terms of email body text and/or attachments with a simple recipient click in their received email message body or by reply to the original email message. The sender receives a returned digitally signed PDF record of the signoff content, timestamp, audit trail and forensics.
   3. Smart Forms: Creates stand alone fill-in forms with embedded functionality inside the form that, at the click of a button, invokes a signature verification process with timestamps, signer authentication, forensic, and handwritten and PKI digital signatures embedded in the resulting PDF format signoff record. This permits users to send an Adobe fill-in and secured form by email as an attachment to the recipient with the data the user inputs into the signoff form optionally automatically complied into a database.
   4. Sender Signature and Authentication: Applies the sender’s cryptographic and/or handwritten, mouse-scripted signature sealed to the email message body and attachments, with a few extra mouse-strokes at the time of sending an email message.

“Lawyers, insurance agents and carriers, human resource professionals, sales operations managers and contracting officers today want electronic signatures services that are both simple to use, yet produce robust signoff records that can withstand legal challenge as to fact of signoff, content associated with signoff, and precise time of signoff — with authentication capabilities available far into the future when records of that signature may become critical to a business dispute,” adds Khan.

RPost has five United States patents – patent numbers 6,182,219; 6,571,334; 7,707,624; 7,865,557 and 7,966,372 that protect this RPost technology in the United States. RPost also holds thirty other patents issued in 21 countries.

About RPost:
RPost is the global standard for email proof, message encryption and electronic signature services. RPost Registered Email® services enable both sender and recipient to prove, sign, encrypt, archive and collaborate across desktop, mobile and online email platforms, with far less cost, time, paper and risk. RPost services are designed for industries such as insurance, financial services, legal, telecommunications, manufacturing and real estate, where the speed of contract execution, encryption or court admissible email records may be a business critical requirement. Recipient of the 2011 World Mail Award for Security, endorsed as the top pick by the 2011 JMBM Corporate Counsel Guide for Converting Contract and Legal Notices to Electronic Delivery and the 2010 Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers’ Buyers Guide for Email Encryption, RPost services are in use in nearly every country in the world, by the U.S. Government through AT&T’s GSA schedule, within Global F500 companies, and endorsed by the most influential American bar associations. RPost, founded in 2000, has been granted 35 patents with worldwide coverage and operates in 8 languages. To contact one of our six global business centers or to register for a no-cost trial, please visit www.rpost.com.

Press Contacts:
David Wood, RPost Marketing. 310-342-0088, dw@rpost.com
Jessica Hasson, Social Radius. 323-710-3556, jessica@socialradius.com