[pta2002]

I've been trying for a few minutes to figure out what you mean by "it's in the name"... What about Internet Protocol implies that ports are not an inherent property of it?

All I can think of is that an "IP address" does not have a port component and that's all that IP deals with.

[withinboredom]

yep. That is exactly it. The IP layer is specifically a map with destination ip address and source ip address. The port is not included.