 The initial decisions (ruled by the National Arbitration Forum in 2003 and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in 2004) decided in favor of Falwell, granting Falwell's claims of federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin, unfair competition, and cybersquatting.On appeal in 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the earlier decisions, ruling that there was not a "likelihood of confusion" between Lamparello's and Falwell's official site; that there was no trademark infringement based on "initial interest confusion" for sites that were non-commercial and critical of the trademark holder; and since Lamparello's site was non-commercial, there was no "bad faith intent to profit" and it was not cybersquatting.In 1999, Christopher Lamparello registered the domain name fallwell.com and used the affiliated website as a gripe site to express his negative opinions about the Fundamentalist Christian preacher Jerry Falwell's public statements against homosexuality.