Patent ID: 8051103

Claim:
A method for creating a particular set of documents for a particular matter, each document being created by a corresponding underlying application, data relating to the particular matter being collected and organized into a corresponding data structure in a database, the method comprising: instantiating on a computing device a merge application independent of the underlying application of each document; receiving at the merge application a selection of a particular master template corresponding to the particular set of documents, the selected master template specifying a plurality of slave templates; receiving at the merge application a selection of the data structure from the database with the data relating to the particular matter; employing at the merge application the selected master template and the selected data structure to produce the set of documents for the particular matter in an electronic form, a corresponding document of the set being produced for each specified slave template in the selected master template, the corresponding document being produced according to common content in the slave template and data in the selected data structure in the database referred to by placeholders in the slave template; producing the corresponding document according to common content in the slave template, data in the database referred to by bookmarks in the slave template, and data in the selected data structure in the database referred to by placeholders in the slave template; receiving at the merge application a selection of a particular envelope template wherein each template is specified in an extensible markup language (XML) format independent of the underlying application of each document; receiving at the merge application a selection of the data structure from the database with the data relating to the particular matter; and employing at the merge application the selected envelope template and the selected data structure to produce envelopes corresponding to the produced set of documents.