A court in Guangdong province did not make a final ruling on a lengthy iPad trademark dispute between a Chinese company and tech giant Apple after a public hearing on Wednesday.

The latest hearing, held in Guangdong Provincial High People's Court, followed an initial ruling by the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, which rejected a lawsuit in December by Apple and IP Application Development accusing Proview Technology of infringing on the iPad trademark.

The hearing on Wednesday focused on whether Proview Electronics, a Taiwan-based company, had the right to represent Shenzhen-based Proview Technology to sell the iPad trademark.

Xiao Caiyuan, the attorney for Shenzhen Proview, said Shenzhen Proview and Taiwan Proview are two independent companies and the contract signed between Taiwan Proview and Apple for the iPad trademark transfer on the mainland was invalid.