Making websites friendly for disabled: Patents office tells High Court

The High Court was recently informed by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks that it is taking measures to ensure its websites are accessible to Persons with Disabilities (PwD), in accordance with the current guidelines issued by the Union of India.

In response to the submission, a plea seeking the accessibility of the patent, designs, and trademarks authority’s websites to persons with disabilities was disposed of by the High Court. Justice MGS Kamal, in a single judge bench order on September 17, stated, “The apprehension given to the petitioner has been substantially complied. Learned counsel for the petitioner also concedes to the same. In that view of the matter, the petition is disposed of, in terms of the affidavit.”

Dr V Parimalavarsini, the Deputy Controller of Patents and Designs, filed an affidavit stating that the Controller General’s office has issued its own ‘Guidelines For Accessibility and Reasonable Accommodation for Persons with Disabilities’. The affidavit mentioned that the authority will provide OCR (Optical Character Recognition) readable documents upon request by Persons with Disability. Additionally, “audio captcha” has been incorporated into the websites owned by the Office of the Controller General, and virtual hearings are being conducted on the Webex platform, which is compatible with “screen readers”.

The affidavit also noted that the Office will favourably consider requests for adjournment, whenever possible, when made by Persons with Disability due to accessibility issues. Furthermore, the Office has started preparing the scope of work for a tender to make the websites accessible to Persons with Disability, in accordance with the prevailing Guidelines issued by the Union of India. The sites will be made accessible to Persons with Disabilities once the approvals from the authorities are obtained, as stated in the affidavit.

The order was issued in response to a writ petition filed by Dr Kalyan C Kankanala.