This accessibility statement applies to a subsection of the ipo.gov.uk web presence which is found at https://www.ipo.gov.uk/ip-support/
This website is run by the Intellectual Property Office. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:
- change colours, contrast levels and fonts
- zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
- navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
- navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
- listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.
Ability Net has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
How accessible is this website?
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible, for example:
- Some PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- Some pages have duplicate ids which may confuse some screen readers
Feedback and contact information
If you have difficulty using this service, or need something in a different format such as large print, audio recording or braille, then contact our general enquiries team:
- email: [email protected]
- telephone: 0300 300 2000
Telephone lines are open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, excluding bank holidays.
We’ll consider all requests for different formats and get back to you within 10 working days.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that are not listed on this page, or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, contact our customer insight team:
- email: [email protected]
- telephone: 0300 300 2000
Telephone lines are open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, excluding bank holidays.
Enforcement procedure
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person
We provide a text relay service for people who are deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.
Our offices have audio induction loops. If you contact us before your visit, we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter to help you complete the service in person.
Find out how to contact us
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
The Intellectual Property Office is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
General PDF files
There are several PDFs on this website which are not exempt from the regulations, but which do not currently comply with them. These PDFs generally contain readable text content but have not been tagged or formatted to raise their accessibility up to the required standards. These PDFs therefore typically fail the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria:
- 1.1.1 (non-text content), where the PDFs contain images/figures which do not have alternative text specified
- 1.3.1 (info and relationships) and 2.4.6 (headings and labels), where the PDFs do not have tagged heading structures
- 1.3.2 (meaningful sequence), where the text in PDFs has been created in floating text boxes (e.g. using desktop publishing software) and no reading order has been specified
We are also working to replace all inaccessible PDFs which fall within the scope of the public sector website accessibility regulations with accessible formats and expect to have completed this work by 31 July 2022.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
We are currently working on an accessibility roadmap, which we will publish once complete. This roadmap will ensure all issues affecting our website are fixed within the timescale stated.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 17 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 2 February 2022.
This website was last tested in August 2021. Testing was carried out by our website's developers, Axis12 Ltd.