Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Case Law: A federal district court recently ruled that a company providing goods or services at a physical location as well as on the Internet may have to modify its physical store AND web site to be accessible to disabled persons – to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act.

There could be a lot of intellectual property that spins off of that.  What will you do to comply – and is it new?

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James Lindon, Ph.D. Patent Attorney
Lindon & Lindon, LLC
Cleveland, Ohio
Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Pharmacy Law, Litigation
[this is not legal advice - provided for discussion only]
Intellectual Property for the Individual and Small Business: Identify, Protect, Enforce, Defend.
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
http://www.LindonLaw.com

This is an interesting case actually! I have heard a lot of rumblings in the disability community regarding this and the accessability of websites for the blind and/or deaf communities. There is a lot of talk about whether or not websites should be forced to add the software/programming so that assistive technology can understand and relay the information to the disability community.

This idea kind of struck me as odd at first...but after thinking some about this idea...it kind of begs the question...why wouldn`t you want to (besides cost factors). According to the last census 1 in 5 people have some type of disability...approximately 600,000 are blind (1 in 417)...2.4 million visually disabled (1 of 100 people). Seems to me you are losing a large portion of the population and potentially your market by NOT upgrading to allow for the disabled.

Now...this said...my site has not gotten the upgrades yet either...and I cater to the disabled...so the next question would be...what are the real implications to having to make these upgrades? Cost? Challenges? Software development/market? Developers` abilities?

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Leah Tucker

Section 508 became US law on June 21, 2001. It directly affects Federal department and agencies, as well as web designers who produce work for them.  The law also applies to gov`t-funded projects and to any state that choose to adobt it.  Many have done so.

This is nothing new. Soon, as James had mentioned, an accessible site is going to be a requirement for business owners.

If your business site is built to the proper standards by your developer you should have nothing to worry about.  A tableless layout using only CSS/XML is a good start. Meeting minimum requirements after that is a piece of cake.

www.section508.gov

I am personally opposed to this type of regulation.  It seems like it should be optional - so only businesses that want to market to this standard should have to do so.

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James Lindon, Ph.D. Patent Attorney
Lindon & Lindon, LLC
Cleveland, Ohio
Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Pharmacy Law, Litigation
[this is not legal advice - provided for discussion only]
Intellectual Property for the Individual and Small Business: Identify, Protect, Enforce, Defend.
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
http://www.LindonLaw.com

Interesting! I think this could put a cramp in small businesses startup and operational capital. You know a company will come out of this that will charge sites to have their technology, so that your website is compliant.

Yeah James, I agree with you for the most part. It is good thought that gov`t sites are subject to this regulation.

For most businesses it`s a smart choice to at least have the basics of accessibility for their site.  As I said before, it takes almost no effort at all if the site is properly coded.

Hey, "forcing" a hospital to put in a wheelchair ramp [when the hospital is too dumb to do it on its own] is maybe ok.  I say let [what`s left of] the free market sort it out.  You want to do bidness with the ADA crowd, make your website accessible to the ADA crowd.  Otherwise, don`t - it`s your website.

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James Lindon, Ph.D. Patent Attorney
Lindon & Lindon, LLC
Cleveland, Ohio
Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Pharmacy Law, Litigation
[this is not legal advice - provided for discussion only]
Intellectual Property for the Individual and Small Business: Identify, Protect, Enforce, Defend.
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
http://www.LindonLaw.com

I think it`s easier for people like myself or you James who don`t have disabilities (as far as I know) to just write off the necessity for accessibility.  Just becuase you know know anybody who has one, or "none of my customers are disabled" is not very much of a reason to ignore them. With an accessible site your business can tap into the $70 billion spent by disabled users every year.

This is the dumbest thing yet, and one more step towards government control overtaking individual freedoms. The entire ADA is unbelievable! I don`t mind having some guidelines, and maybe a VERY few laws, but the way the legislation is written pretty much it can mean anything.

I don`t think we`ll comply (web site). If we get arrested, fine...then we`ll see about it. :-)

maybe somebody could write a book or movie about the gubment crashing people`s businesses with a SWAT team because they have websites that don`t "comply."

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James Lindon, Ph.D. Patent Attorney
Lindon & Lindon, LLC
Cleveland, Ohio
Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Pharmacy Law, Litigation
[this is not legal advice - provided for discussion only]
Intellectual Property for the Individual and Small Business: Identify, Protect, Enforce, Defend.
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
http://www.LindonLaw.com