What do the Morse code have in common with qualified e-signature?

In 1869, the use of the Morse code by telegraph created new challenges in contract law. Although the subject of the New Hampshire Supreme Court case Howley v. Whipple was a matter of agency relations, a decision that set a precedent for the idea that a legally binding signature is not strictly ink on paper, but rather a symbol associated with consent to a transaction.

“When a contract is concluded by exchanging telegraphic messages, which must be in writing in accordance with the law, if the parties authorize their agents in writing or orally to make an offer on the one hand and the other party accepts it by telegraph, concluding a written contract under the law: authorizes his agents, company, or company operator to write for him: and it does not matter whether that operator writes an offer or acceptance in the presence of his principal and at his direct direction with an inch-long steel pen attached to a conventional pen holder, or his copper pen wire a thousand miles long. In both cases, the thought is conveyed on paper by a finger resting on a pen: and it does not matter that in one case ordinary ink is used for writing, while in another case a thinner liquid, known as electricity, performs one and the same function”.

Thus, the idea that a medium, whether telegraph or the Internet, could replace the need for a traditional signature existed in the 19th century.

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