§ 3713a. Local law enforcement grants
(b)
Grants
The Office of Justice Programs of the Department of Justice may make grants to eligible State or local law enforcement entities, including law enforcement agencies of municipal governments and public educational institutions, for training, prevention, enforcement, and prosecution of intellectual property theft and infringement crimes (in this subsection referred to as “IP–TIC grants”), in accordance with the following:
(1)
Use of IP–TIC grant amounts
IP–TIC grants may be used to establish and develop programs to do the following with respect to the enforcement of State and local true name and address laws and State and local criminal laws on anti-infringement, anti-counterfeiting, and unlawful acts with respect to goods by reason of their protection by a patent, trademark, service mark, trade secret, or other intellectual property right under State or Federal law:
(A)
Assist State and local law enforcement agencies in enforcing those laws, including by reimbursing State and local entities for expenses incurred in performing enforcement operations, such as overtime payments and storage fees for seized evidence.
(B)
Assist State and local law enforcement agencies in educating the public to prevent, deter, and identify violations of those laws.
(C)
Educate and train State and local law enforcement officers and prosecutors to conduct investigations and forensic analyses of evidence and prosecutions in matters involving those laws.
(D)
Establish task forces that include personnel from State or local law enforcement entities, or both, exclusively to conduct investigations and forensic analyses of evidence and prosecutions in matters involving those laws.
(E)
Assist State and local law enforcement officers and prosecutors in acquiring computer and other equipment to conduct investigations and forensic analyses of evidence in matters involving those laws.
(F)
Facilitate and promote the sharing, with State and local law enforcement officers and prosecutors, of the expertise and information of Federal law enforcement agencies about the investigation, analysis, and prosecution of matters involving those laws and criminal infringement of copyrighted works, including the use of multijurisdictional task forces.
(2)
Eligibility
To be eligible to receive an IP–TIC grant, a State or local government entity shall provide to the Attorney General, in addition to the information regularly required to be provided under the Financial Guide issued by the Office of Justice Programs and any other information required of Department of Justice’s grantees—
(A)
assurances that the State in which the government entity is located has in effect laws described in paragraph (1);
(B)
an assessment of the resource needs of the State or local government entity applying for the grant, including information on the need for reimbursements of base salaries and overtime costs, storage fees, and other expenditures to improve the investigation, prevention, or enforcement of laws described in paragraph (1); and
(C)
a plan for coordinating the programs funded under this section with other federally funded technical assistance and training programs, including directly funded local programs such as the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program authorized by subpart 1 of part E of title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3750 et seq.).
(3)
Matching funds
The Federal share of an IP–TIC grant may not exceed 50 percent of the costs of the program or proposal funded by the IP–TIC grant.