A hail-Mary legal play to ban the sale of iPads in Shanghai — a city of 23 million with three Apple stores — has failed, according to a Reuters report that crossed the wires early Thursday morning.

On Wednesday, Apple (AAPL) and Shenzhen Proview traded blows in a Shanghai courtroom, Apple arguing that it bought the iPad trademark fair and square from Proview International Holdings in 2009 for $55,000. Shenzhen Proview claimed that Apple’s paperwork was sloppy and that it failed to secure the rights in mainland China.

Late Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that the case had been suspending pending Apple’s appeal of a provincial Chinese court’s ruling in Proview’s favor.

But a local newspaper, the Xinmin Evening News, said that the Shanghai court had actually rejected Proview’s case, and on Thursday morning, citing “a source with direct knowledge of the ruling,” Reuters confirmed it.

[UPDATE: A report in the
Wall Street Journal
suggests that the AP and Reuters were both correct. According to the Journal, the Shanghai court rejected Proview’s demand for an injunction that would have temporarily halted iPad sales, but it also also agreed to postpone proceedings until the provincial court rules on Apple’s appeal.]

Proview filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and the case against Apple was being managed by Hejun Vanguard Group, a consulting company representing Proview’s creditors. Those creditors, The Next Web Asia reports, include the Bank of China and Minsheng Bank.

It’s not clear whether the $2 billion suit Hejun planned to bring against Apple in the U.S. will proceed.