Adobe Reader 9, Form Fields, Digital Signature

I have already posted this in Adobe Reader forum and had no replies... probably the wrong area...
We are a software company and we are developing a simple application, as follows:
Any number of pdf documents are provided by a third party (our customer / customers). Each form contains any number of fields and a digital signature field.
Our application must fill the fields with values obtained by a back-end database
Using Adobe Reader 9, our application must display each pdf document filled in step 2, for users to sign using a Topaz tablet.
The "blank", original pdf document can be easily completed by hand and signed using the Topaz tablet - thanks to the Adobe Reader plug-in.
Also, we can quite easily fill all the doument's fields using the popular iTextSharp libraries - we extract relevant data from our back-end database, we set the field values, and we display the document in Adobe Reader 9 (note that after filling the form, we have experimented with "flattened" and "non-flattened" documents....with the same results)...
Here we start having some problems:
As soon as the "filled" document is displayed in Adobe Reader, the message "This document enables Reader capabilities that are no longer enabled in this Reader version." is displayed. And the signature field is disabled and the Topaz plug-in is never invoked.
It seems that the simple task of programmatically filling the form with data.... disable the most important feature of the form (the signature line).
Unfortunately, my knowledge of the Adobe product line is somewhat limited....
After hours of research I think I understand why (even though I find the behavior incredibly strange and restrictive). I still would like, if possible, summary and clear information on what we (and/or the provider of the pdf forms) need to do to accomplish the goal of our application.
Thanks in advance for any suggestion.
Giorgio

jmo here
In context of your description, use of Acrobat Pro to "enable" PDFs for use by Adobe Reader appears to be contrary to the Acrobat EULA (if nothing else, the "500" limit for forms).
If that's the case then I suspect your only option would be LiveCycle ES.
Back down the Forum's timeline, someone mention $50K for a seat.
But LC ES has many variations (modules if you will) so the price point may be higher.
Basically, it is expensive (although worth the $$ to the IRS and other large entities).
Worth noting are the posts in this forum that allude to Adobe's legal actions taken against those who have, it seems, violated the Acrobat EULA.
If your client(s) are associated with a corporate entity they may be exposed to legal "road hazards"; but, that's speculative, eh?
Regardless, it does sort of appear that you may be on thin ice vis-a-vis "enable" of PDFs for use by Adobe Reader.
Be well...

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