Grants to protect Public Health, Safety, and Economy from Counterfeit Goods and Product Piracy (US)

The purpose for this funding is to support state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement and prosecutors that have an intellectual property (IP) enforcement task force or plan to create one. The Intellectual Property Enforcement Program (IPEP) assists these agencies in sharing information and preventing and reducing intellectual property thefts and related crimes both in their community and adjacent communities. In addition, these task forces will work with federal law enforcements agencies and their local U.S. Attorney’s Office in investigating and prosecuting IP crimes and reducing violent crime associated with IP cases.

Goals and Objectives

• Goal 1: Improve the coordination of IP enforcement efforts among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial authorities.
  • Objective 1: Establish and/or enhance state, local, tribal, or territorial IP enforcement task forces, including campus law enforcement.
• Goal 2: Share information about the targeting, investigating, analyzing, and prosecuting IP crimes between established task forces and federal agencies.
  • Objective 1: Review how these crimes are being committed on the state and local levels.
  • Objective 2: Document the cases created and prosecuted based on information shared.
• Activities in support of these program goals and objectives will include:
  • Conduct quarterly meetings of the task force members to update, discuss, and collaborate on IP investigations, prosecutions, training, and public awareness activities for which a detailed plan must be documented in the timeline.
  • Provide to all relevant partners information about targeting, investigation, analysis, and prosecution of matters involving IP crimes as they relate to violations of state and local criminal statutes.
  • Provide information to BJA on the number of cases initiated under this award during the given period.
  • Provide an overview of IP cases and investigations highlighting successes and ones that showed promise but did not result in any arrests.
  • Create educational materials or use those provided by BJA’s IPEP technical assistance provider, to assist uninformed buyers in determining the authenticity of seemingly legitimate websites that instead deceive consumers into purchasing counterfeit goods.

Funding Information

• Anticipated Total Amount to Be Awarded: $2,400,000.
• Anticipated Award Ceiling: Up to $400,000.
• Anticipated Period of Performance Duration: 24 months.

Expected Deliverables

• Deliverables are what the applicant will create or produce under the award. The term “deliverables” as used here refers to discrete products under an award. An award may support activities (e.g., personnel time for award activities) that are part of recipient performance but are not considered deliverables. Award recipients will be expected to develop and submit the deliverables listed below in the course of implementing their proposed project.
  • Complete and submit a summary report for each year of the award.
  • Develop and provide a sustainment plan for this IP task force/project when the federal funding for this period has come to an end.

Eligibility Criteria

• The types of entities that are eligible to apply for this funding opportunity are listed below:
  • Government Entities
    • State governments
    • County governments
    • City or township governments
    • Special district governments
    • Native American Tribal governments (federally recognized)
  • Educational Organizations
    • Public and state-controlled institutions of higher education
  • Other
    • State, local, tribal, municipal, or campus law enforcement agencies
    • Prosecutors
  • “Other” Entities Definition:
    • Eligible applicants include law enforcement agencies and prosecutors. For the purpose of this NOFO, the following definitions shall apply:
    • State Government Entities: For the purposes of this NOFO, “state” means any state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
    • Law enforcement: For the purposes of this NOFO, “law enforcement” shall include state, local, tribal, municipal, or campus law enforcement agencies, to include prosecutors in these jurisdictions.
    • Intellectual property enforcement: For the purposes of this NOFO, “intellectual property enforcement” means matters relating to the enforcement of criminal laws protecting copyrights, patents, trademarks, other forms of intellectual property (IP), and trade secrets, both in the United States and abroad, including in particular matters relating to combating counterfeit and infringing goods.
  • Additional Applicant Eligibility Factors
    • If the applicant was a successful IPEP awardee in FY 2024, they are not eligible to apply for IPEP funding for FY 2025. The applicant may be eligible to apply again in FY 2026.

Application Requirements

• A proposal abstract (no more than 2,000 characters) summarizing the proposed project must be completed in the JustGrants web-based form. The text from abstracts will be made publicly available on the websites if the project is awarded, so this section of the application should not contain any personally identifiable information (e.g., the name of the project director).
• The abstract should be in paragraph form without bullets or tables and written in the third person (e.g., they, the community, their, themselves, rather than I or they). The abstract should include the following information:
  • The name of the applicant’s proposed project.
  • The purpose of the proposed project (i.e., what the project will do and why it is necessary).
  • Where the project will take place (i.e., the service area, if applicable).
  • Who will be served by the project (i.e., who will be helped or have their needs addressed by the project).
  • What activities will be carried out to complete the project.
  • The subrecipient(s)/partner organizations or entities, if known.
  • Deliverables and expected outcomes (i.e., what the project will achieve).

For more information, visit Grants.gov.