IEEE Spectrum January, 2008 - 5

forum
Patent
Protection

i

Don't call
it warfare

r

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10

obert N.
Charette's article,
"Open-Source Warfare"
[November] is interest-
ing, but its use of the
word war to describe
the current situations in
Iraq and Afghanistan is
erroneous. Both wars
ended years ago-in
Afghanistan, when we
defeated the Taliban-led
government, and in Iraq,
when we ended the rule
of Saddam Hussein and
disbanded his army. In
both countries, the U.S.
military forces and their
allies are now an occupa-
tional force supporting
an unstable government.
There are people in both
countries who want us
to leave, and they fight
like the Chechnyans
fight the Russians and
the Palestinians fight
the Israelis. Of course,
these small groups are
no match for the armies
they are pitted against,
and they use the most
effective weapons and
technologies they can get
their hands on. In Iraq
today, cellphones and the
Internet are the technol-
ogies of choice.
Decades ago, guerillas
also used the weapons

NA * iEEE SpEctrum * JANuAry 2008

available to them. They
used hit-and-run tactics
because they could not
defeat an organized army.
So when Charette writes
"when the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan finally
end," he really means
"when we eventually
decide to leave." Rather
than ponder how the U.S.
Department of Defense
procurement system
should be changed to
equip an occupying
army, the real questions
to be answered are these:
should an army be used
as an occupying force?
Are the technologies
developed for armies
suitable for occupation in
a hostile environment?
Eric Holzman
IEEE Senior Member
Ellicott City, Md.

K

udos to Robert N.
Charette and to the
editors of IEEE Spectrum
for publishing this arti-
cle. As a 40-year veteran
of the defense industry,
now retired, I found the
article refreshing, infor-
mative, clear, crisp, and
concise. It is the best
article I have read in
Spectrum this year.
Eli Dalabakis
IEEE Life Senior Member
St. Petersburg, Fla.

n reference to
"Keeping Score in the
IP Game" [November]:
Lately I keep seeing
articles whining about
two things-U.S. patent
protection is too strong,
and U.S. R&D is too
weak. You can't have it
both ways. If you weaken
patent protection, then
you also take away much
of the value of industry-
sponsored research,
thereby weakening R&D.
It makes no sense for
IEEE members to pro-
mote weaker patent pro-
tection, because patents
are good for engineers.
Strong patent protection
may be a significant
chunk of management's
costs, now that they out-
source so many jobs. But
it is good for engineers.
Ken Kerpez
IEEE Fellow
Piscataway, N.J.

Powerworks
Doesn't

c

an there be any
more absurd idea
than the Coleman
Powerworks power
inverter for cars
[Resources, November]?
There's something very
wrong with this picture:
the engine's alternator
generates alternating
current (ac), which is
converted to direct cur-

rent (dc) to recharge the
battery and is also dis-
tributed to a cigarette-
lighter receptacle, into
which we're supposed
to insert a cigar-shaped
plug to send that dc
power to an inverter to
change it back into ac so
that we can plug in our
laptop's power converter,
which changes it back to
dc to power the laptop!
To recap: ac to dc to ac
to dc. That doesn't seem
like sound engineering.
It's more like Edison and
Tesla are still fighting
it out in the backseat of
my car.
Why not put in
place a professionally
engineered electrical
system? What's needed is
a simple auto dc distribu-
tion network, with small,
standard, purpose-built
dc plugs, into which we
can directly plug music
players, GPS units, cell-
phones, DVD players,
and the like. That sounds
like a job for the IEEE.
Richard Campbell
IEEE Member
New York City

correction
In "Charge of the Ultra-
capacitors" [November],
the sentence "The sheet is
placed in a vacuum, heated
to 650 °C, and exposed to a
thin hydrocarbon gas, per-
haps ethanol or acetylene"
should have referred to
ethylene, not ethanol.

But Does it run on ethanol?

t

he Big picture [News, November] featured a
photograph of the pivo 2 concept car. this is
a classic example of bad product naming. "pivo"
means "beer" in czech and other slavic languages.
Russell Shannon IEEE Member, Mount Holly, N.J.
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum January, 2008
