The Higher People’s Court of Guangzhou has started hearing the appeal by Apple on Feb. 29 after a Chinese lower court ruled in favor of the debt-ridden Chinese tech company Proview Technology (Shenzhen) which claimed the ownership of the "iPad" trademark in China, reports "ZDNet" (http://macte.ch/z0y7Z).

Despite that a ruling on an appeal case would normally be issued within three months in China, Zhao Le, a spokesman at the court’s foreign affairs office, told the publication that it won't make a judgment as long as both parties continue talking. Roger Xie, a Proview’s lawyer, also confirmed that “the mediation will continue”, and “there is no specific deadline.”

Proview says it owns the rights to the "iPad" name in China; Apple, as you might expect, disagrees. In February Proview filed a lawsuit in Santa Clara County (California) that brought the legal dispute to Silicon Valley. With that move, the brouhaha went international.