US Patent 7607078 Paper and electronic recognizable forms

A method for processing forms in a computer system includes receiving from a human operator a design of a unified from template including data fields and respective attributes. Paper forms and electronic forms (e-forms) are automatically produced based on the unified form template. Filled-in paper forms and filled-in e-forms are accepted from the clients of the computer system, the filled-in forms including data items filled into the respective data fields by the clients. The data items are extracted from the filled-in paper forms and the filled-in e-forms responsively to the unified form template.