Local Car Club name Question (Copyright)? Nokturnal?

Question

Okay me and some Friends have about 15-20 cars in a car club but we are choosing a new name..we thought about Nokturnal Car Club since we always Cruise at night. but i got on and googled it and aprently it's allready a car club in CALI or so..

so could we still use it locally? im pretty sure it's not copyrighted so

it's not anyones name is it?

i just want to know before we all decide on it.

Answer 1

This relates to trademarks, not copyrights.  Generally speaking, in the US, unregistered trademarks are entitled to protection in their geographic area of use.  So if they are in a different area, it should not be a problem.  But use on the internet could be seen as use over a broader area, particularly if they actually do business outside their base geographic area.