FY21 Intellectual Property Enforcement Program: Protecting Public Health, Safety, and the Economy from Counterfeit Goods and Product Piracy

Project Abstract The New Jersey State Police (NJSP) proposes to develop a database containing information gained through criminal investigations relative to intellectual property enforcement. The goals of this project are to develop a database of suspects and businesses profiting from the manufacturing, distribution, and sale of counterfeit products; disseminate the identification of suspects and businesses engaging in this activity to other law enforcement agencies; determine where this criminal activity is undertaken and where they are receiving these products from; flag overseas companies that are shipping these products to the United States; and link suspects/businesses involved with these crimes to other criminal activity. The NJSP has a dedicated Cargo Theft Unit (CTU) responsible for the statewide investigation of cargo theft and commercial crimes, including intellectual property theft. The CTU is comprised of eight sworn investigators, who are members of the NJSP. The CTU partners with law enforcement agencies tasked with conducting a variety of criminal investigations throughout the State including those involving intellectual property crimes. The CTU also engages with private sector partners, including private detective agencies, and businesses responsible for protecting the intellectual property of their respective domains. The funding provided by this grant offers the opportunity for the unit to: 1. Purchase a PenLink PLX license and a a dedicated server used strictly to store and analyze raw data to be used with PenLink PLX. This would allow for more productive intellectual property theft investigations in the future. 2. Enhance police efforts by utilizing this database with the analytical tool (PenLink PLX) and share the intelligence with counter local and federal law enforcement agencies in and around the State of New Jersey in a comprehensive and accessible format. 3. Identify and apprehend the individuals and organizations that traffic these counterfeit items into the region and determine which overseas companies are committing intellectual property crimes. 4. Flag overseas companies that are shipping these products to the United States, then have customs seize them and /or utilize them in sting operations to shut down the stateside operations. 5. Organize data from past and future investigations to make it more comprehensible and easier to share. 6. Pursue higher-level targets and sources of intellectual property crimes.

This application did not submit and request for priority consideration.  This application was provide an increase from the requested amount by $66,670, a budget revision will be requested.