On March 19th, Hangzhou Internet Court (Hangzhou Railway Transport Court) publicly heard the unfair competition dispute between the plaintiff OPPO Guangdong Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as OPPO Company), Guangdong Huantai Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Huantai Company) and the defendant Falcon Information Technology (Ningbo) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Ningbo Falcon Company), and reached the in-court judgment. This is the first time the unfair competition dispute of smartphone screen hijacking is brought to legal procedure in China.

OPPO Company is the manufacturer of mobile phones with OPPO brand and the copyright owner and proprietor of ColorOS mobile phone operating system. Huantai Company is the operator of the mobile Internet services of the OPPO product. Ningbo Falcon Company is the developer and operator of "Hi Call" mobile application. The two plaintiffs believed that Ningbo Falcon Company developed the "Hi Call" App, which, through malicious technical means, hinders and destroys the network products and services legally provided by the two plaintiffs by implementing a series of behaviors, such as popping up imitation information flow pages and interfering advertisement windows before and after the screen locking function of OPPO mobile phone, or popping up interfering advertisement windows after the user closes the mobile application.

After the trial, Hangzhou Internet Court ruled that Ningbo Falcon Company shall immediately cease its acts of unfair competition, including: popping up advertisement window after the user closes the lock screen of OPPO mobile phone (i.e. popping up a full-screen page after the user lights up the screen and unlocks the phone); popping up a full-screen page after the user lights up but not yet unlock the screen; popping up an advertisement window when the user closes any mobile application program on OPPO mobile phone; popping up window when the user changes the Wi-Fi status of OPPO mobile phone; popping up window when the user hangs up the OPPO mobile phone. The defendant shall compensate three million yuan of damage to the two plaintiffs for economic losses and reasonable expenses for safeguarding rights.

This is the first time the smart phone screen hijacking is brought to open discussion as a new type of unfair competition act on the Internet. The ruling has therefore delineated the reasonable boundary of technology application, balanced the relationship between the builders and participants of the business ecological environment, clarified the applicable judgment criteria of the "Internet Special Article", and effectively regulated the competition order of the smart phone industry.