// don't forget this
<script src="/jq/jquery.validate.js"></script>
<script>
jQuery(function() {
	if (!checkAttribute('input', 'required')) { // check for html5 validation
		jQuery("#form").validate(); // no? hey, use jQuery validate
	}

        if (!checkAttribute('input', 'autofocus')) { // check for html5 validation
                document.getElementById("q").focus(); // no? hey, use jQuery focus()
        }
});

function checkAttribute(element, attribute) { //the function
	var test = document.createElement(element);
	if (attribute in test) {
		return true;
	} else {
		return false;
	}
}	
</script>

<!-- don't forget this -->
<script src="/jq/jquery.validate.js"></script>
<script>
jQuery(function() {
	if (!checkAttribute('input', 'required')) { // check for html5 validation
		jQuery("#form").validate(); // no? hey, use jQuery validate
	}

        if (!checkAttribute('input', 'autofocus')) { // check for html5 validation
                document.getElementById("q").focus(); // no? hey, use jQuery focus()
        }
});

function checkAttribute(element, attribute) { //the function
	var test = document.createElement(element);
	if (attribute in test) {
		return true;
	} else {
		return false;
	}
}	
</script>

http://diveintohtml5.org/forms.html

Couple of ways to check if HTML5 form elements exist and use a fallback if they don't.

HTML5 Form Validation w/ jQuery Fallbacks

html5

jQuery