NCIS does Gatling guns on 16 Nov 2010

In "Enemies Foreign" shown on November 16, Ducky gets to investigate three bodies from a ship fired upon by a Coast Guard vessel armed with 20mm Gatling guns. As a general matter, the MK 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS - pronounced "sea-whiz") is a fast-reaction, rapid-fire 20-millimeter gun system that provides US Navy ships with a terminal defense against anti-ship missiles that have penetrated other fleet defenses. [from FAS]. Although the 20mm shells did some vivid damage, the victims were killed with smaller arms, by the terrorists they were bringing into the country.

The terrorists later acquire some weaponry by hijacking a shipment destined for Fort A. P. Hill, a training and maneuver center focused on providing realistic joint and combined arms training. Some of the weapons, operating remotely, show up later in the episode.

The original Gatling gun was the subject of a U.S. patent, to a resident of North Carolina. See IPBiz post

Patents, Draft Riots, and Little Big Horn

Also mentioned in the NCIS episode was Tristan da Cunha, which is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world. One of the ex-NCISers at the meeting had to fly in to Washington from there. Of a "patent" connection, wikipedia notes: On 12 January 1938, by Letters Patent, the islands were declared a dependency of Saint Helena.

***Also, of patents in a prior NCIS episode:

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2010/10/ncis-cracked-episode-does-biofuels.html