Hi Greg, I just happen to have my PADI dive tables sitting right next to me. I’ve got the recreational dive planners for air, EANx32, EANx36, and oxygen partial pressure. They’re all copyright protected by DSAT. The PADI logo is a registered mark and "Recreational Dive Planner" is trademarked by DST. Intellectual property (IP) law is pretty interesting. I have looked into it a little to research the idea of protecting some ideas I have and I’m also an avid photographer. All those things we see all the time and probably don’t think much about like trademark, copyright, patent, registered are all legal tools in the category of intellectual property.
Any original work that a person writes, draws, photographs, paints, etc. is protected by U.S. copyright (in the U.S.) law. Curiously enough, one does not have to inscribe anything like “copyright” or use the curious copyright symbol for it to be protected by US law. Neither does your work have to be registered with US Patent and Trademark Office to be protected. We use those marks and indications to inform others that we retain our copy rights and to help defend our works in “future” litigation. It might be hard to prove copy rights of an image or printed work, though, if you haven’t taken some steps ahead of time to identify the owner. IP laws and rights get more complicated when you leave the US and more difficult to enforce.
Pretty much any printed item, like a dive table or page in your dive text is protected by copyright. The copyright protects the form in which it is presented like a dive table or a photograph. Patents protect the idea. I didn’t see any patent information on my tables, and I suspect that dive tables we commonly use may have originally come from the US Navy, and may have not been patented because they are considered “public domain.” Photocopying that stuff and distributing it to another person actually violates the copyright held by the owner. Trade mark protects the mark (go figure) as an original and unique mark or symbol so that another person or company cannot use that mark to their benefit at the expense of the owner. We see trademark infringement all the time in countries outside the US when a foreign, local business “borrows” something like the world famous Mickey Mouse ear/head profile on their sign advertising their toy store or ice cream shop.