Another courtroom battle is being waged against Apple over the Siri technology, but the U.S. tech giant's opponent is not its usual nemesis, Samsung, but another Asian tech firm - Zhizhen Network Technology which is based in Shanghai, China.

The Chinese firm accused Apple on Wednesday in a Shanghai court of copying its software that the iPhone-maker allegedly used to create its virtual assistant.

Zhizhen claimed it patented in 2004 the Xiao i Robot while Apple started to develop Siri only in 2007 but released it as a feature of the iPhone 4S in 2011.

Both technologies respond to user's voice commands, but the Xiao i Robot works on both iOS and Android phones and is used by more than 100 million Chinese, Zhizhen said.

Si Weijiang, a lawyer who represents Zhizhen, said the Chinese tech firm will ask the California-based company to stop producing and selling devices that uses its parent rights. He said once the Shanghai court confirms Apple's infringement, it would consider seeking compensation in the future.

It is not the first legal battle for Apple in China, where it is looking to expand in the future the sales of its devices. In 2012, another Chinese company sued Apple over the iPad trademark and won, resulting in a $60 million settlement agreement.

It is not only Apple but also other western tech firms may find China more difficult to penetrate as the Chinese government announced that it is shifting to home-grown tech solutions and have partnered with the creator of the Ubuntu OS to develop an open-source operation system that is China-specific.

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